
Glass j]. 
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THROUGH FRENCH EYES 

BRITAIN'S EFFORT 



Authorised Translation. 



PRINTED BY EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, LTD., HIS MAJESTY'S PRINTERS, 
EAST HARDING STREET, LONDON, EX. 



THROUGH 
FRENCH EYES 

BRITAIN'S EFFORT 



BY 

HENRY D. DAVRAY 



LONDON 
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD. 

1916 



ZD5I 7 



J^**" 



CONTENTS 



CHAP PAGE 
I — CROSSING THE CHANNEL IN WAR-TIME I 

II — THE RECRUITING OF THE VOLUNTEERS 8 

III — A CENSUS PREPARATORY TO CON- 
SCRIPTION - - - - - 25 

IV — FOR AND AGAINST CONSCRIPTION - - 32 

V — THE PREDICTIONS OF MR. H. G. WELLS 41 

VI — LORD KITCHENER INSPECTS HIS ARMIES 5 1 

VII — IRELAND UNITED AGAINST THE ENEMY 62 

VIII — AT THE CAMP OF THE CANADIANS - 70 

IX — A NURSERY FOR HEROES - - - 76 

X — ENGLAND AND MUNITIONS - - 83 

XI — UNDER THE DOME OF ST. PAUL'S - - IO9 

XII — SIR ROBERT BORDEN AND FRANCE - Il8 

XIII — A MEANS OF FINISHING THE WAR - I24 

XIV — THE EFFORTS OF ENGLAND - I29 

XV — THE PROGRESS OF AVIATION - - I34 

vii a 4 



CONTENTS 

CHAP PAGE 

XVI — WITH THE BRITISH ARMY - 141 

XVII — THE INDIAN CONTINGENT - - - 151 

XVIII — THE AERIAL WAR - 169 

XIX — UNDER THE SHELLS - - - - 178 

XX — IN THE REAR OF THE TRENCHES - l8l 

XXI— THE MILLER - - - - 1 89 

XXII — AT THE FRONT ----- 197 

XXIII — IN THE TRENCHES - 234 

XXIV — HOW WAR HAS TRANSFORMED THE 

ENGLISH ----- 249 



Vlll 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 



Crossing the Channel in War-Time 

T>EWARE of submarines ! With this warning 
in my ears, I take the train for London. 
The same warning is bestowed upon me on all 
sides, sometimes in a facetious tone by people 
of a merry disposition, sometimes with a note of 
distress by those prone to indulge in gloomy prog- 
nostications. In parting from the latter, I affect 
to share their apprehensions. I bid them touching 
farewells with a tremolo in my voice, though I 
cannot succeed in shedding tears of emotion. But 
how can I possibly bid a joyous au revoir to people 
in whose imaginations I am already foredoomed 
to provide nourishment for the fishy inhabitants 
of the Channel ! 

The people who believe that submarines are 
ambushed in hundreds all round the English coast 
are only too numerous. Let them come and see 
for themselves, and they will soon be disabused. 

Although it is no longer possible to travel 
with the pleasant facility of pre- War days, and 

I A 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

though one has to be able to furnish passports and 
papers which are strictly in order and to submit 
to innumerable visits and cross-examinations, none 
the less the decks and between-decks of the 
vessel are soon encumbered with a crowd of pas- 
sengers of all classes. With the exercise of infinite 
care and precaution they have even embarked 
several horses, with their passports attached to 
the front of their halters. 

As we put off from the landing-stage the 
shore is covered with a swarm of loungers and 
bathers. The coloured sunshades and the light 
dresses glisten gaily in the sunshine. 

Ahead of us the sea is so calm that a periscope 
might be seen at a distance of several miles. We 
shall not see any ! In the morning, we are told, a 
French torpedo-boat spoiled the symmetry of one 
of those instruments, which was so imprudent as 
to emerge in its neighbourhood. And, in fact, 
to the west, a small warship is darting about 
with extraordinary rapidity beneath long streamers 
of black smoke. Not far off are a few fishing- 
boats, with all sails spread. 

Our boat proceeds at its maximum speed. The 
air is still, and the dense smoke from the great 
funnels is not dispersed, but hangs suspended 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

like an immense hawser binding us to the 
land. The coast of France is still quite clear, 
and we can discern already the long white line 
of the English cliffs. We might be crossing some 
great tranquil lake. We are not alone : near at 
hand and in the distance other boats are be- 
daubing the sky's blue with their black trails of 
smoke ; I can count more than fifty of them. 
We pass mail-boats pressing along at full speed, 
we pass cargo-boats — heavier and slower — and 
there is nothing to suggest danger in the radiant 
tranquillity of this sparkling sea. 

Nevertheless, a practised eye would be able 
to detect certain unaccustomed signs. Possibly 
mines have been placed along the ship's course. 
Signals are exchanged with lightships that one 
had not noticed before. And, above the cap- 
tain's bridge, a cask is attached to the mast, from 
which the lookout surveys the surroundings. 

The coast of France disappears in a black haze 
of smoke. The high cliffs of Britain are outlined 
more clearly against the sky. The boats are more 
numerous now. From all points of the horizon 
they converge in the direction of the harbour. 
I fancy that some fifteen hundred boats a week 
enter the English ports, and that the German 

3 A 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

pirates, at the highest point of their success, never 
succeeded in sinking fifteen in the same lapse 
of time. Taking the total, they destroy scarcely 
a half per cent. At this rate, it would take them 
several centuries to wipe out England's mari- 
time trade, even on the supposition that our Allies 
did not build any boats to replace those which 
are lost ; and the latter is by no means the case ! 

The German submarine blockade is really not 
very formidable, in the opinion of those who have 
any knowledge at all of naval matters. More- 
over, the losses suffered by the Germans are very 
substantial. However rapidly they construct sub- 
marine craft of all descriptions, the latter are 
captured and destroyed in numbers which must 
cause them considerable uneasiness. No, England 
will not be starved out by this means. 

The entrances to the English ports seem to be 
guarded with the utmost caution. A submarine, 
blind and submerged, would be caught in the 
trap set for her more surely than a herring. How 
are herrings caught ? In nets ? Well, imagine 
a net some miles in length, manipulated from dry 
land, without any danger for the operator and with 
certain danger for the submarine, which would 
be caught infallibly. All this is visible with the 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

naked eye. Insular England understands very 
well how to protect herself. 

The passengers are so much interested in this 
spectacle that they do not appear to notice what 
is happening in the sky. Only a moment ago 
some curious objects had risen up, like a flight of 
large birds, startled by the shrieks of the steam- 
boat's whistle. Aeroplanes ? No ; or, if so, of 
a strange pattern ! In any case they are some 
kind of flying machines ; they leave the top of the 
cliff very neatly, they manoeuvre in mid-air, they 
ascend and descend, they pursue a torpedo-boat, 
they skim the waves, they come and go and point 
this way and that with incredible ease and rapidity. 
The passengers applaud and give vent to cries of 
admiration. I must confess that the spectacle is 
worthy of admiration. A gentleman by my side, 
who has suddenly become uneasy, asks : " They 
are not Zeppelins, are they ? " I am able to 
reassure him without hesitation. These flying 
machines have none of the rigidity and the colossal 
bulk of the German monsters. They suggest, 
rather, immense dragon-flies, with wings too dia- 
phanous to be visible. " A flying whale " is the 
more apt description of a distinguished compatriot 
who has been the most charming of travelling 

5 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

companions. The machine, in fact, consists of 
a kind of elongated balloon, like the body of a 
whale, the apparently rigid carcase being covered 
with a tissue which reminds one of the silver paper 
round a packet of chocolate. The rays of the sun 
are reflected on it with a silvery radiance like a 
beam of light on the red-brown belly of a trout 
in the clear water of a stream. Suddenly, one of 
these machines rushes towards us. As the front 
part of it is larger than the back, it has the appear- 
ance now of a sphere, with a tiny boat suspended 
very low. It seems to mock the slow progress 
of our boat ; it comes up to us, drops to a few 
yards above the sea, and sails along in our com- 
pany. The two aeronauts, whose heads and 
shoulders we discern above the edge of the car, 
are greeted with acclamations. The hum of the 
motor diminishes, the propeller turns more slowly, 
the aviators wave their arms and reply to the 
cheers of the passengers. 

Suddenly the hum of the motor is redoubled, 
the propeller revolves once more at full speed, 
and, in a few seconds, the flying machine leaves us 
behind, then turns, comes back to us, is off again, 
and we are left wondering. To right and left other 
machines are performing similar evolutions : they rise 

6 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

swiftly high above the cliffs, hover over the clear 
depths of the sea, in which nothing can escape the 
notice of the observers, and slide down at a dizzy 
angle as though to hurl bombs with certain aim. 

Later, from the train which has climbed the 
slope and dominates the town, we see them still, 
these prodigious insects : they skim over the in- 
numerable white chimneypots which decorate so 
oddly the roofs of the English towns, or they re- 
descend towards the harbour in the midst of a 
distracted flight of swallows. 

Scattered over the verdant, rolling country, 
are tents and huts in endless succession. It is 
as though the barracks of the neighbouring camp 
had multiplied in thousands and had invaded 
all this charming landscape. In the streets of the 
town, in the country roads, over the vast stretches 
of turf — everywhere there are soldiers in khaki, 
proving that England is awake and is preparing 
herself. 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 



II 

The Recruiting of the Volunteers 
Speeches and Bands 

\ NY Englishman of more than 18 and less than 
40 years of age who has failed to enlist must 
feel remarkably uneasy in his conscience. Which- 
ever way he looks, bills, placards, posters din 
into his brain the implacable injunction : " Your 
country needs you ! Enlist immediately I" It is 
useless for him to turn away his head, for, in that 
case, not only is he elbowed by ten of his com- 
patriots in khaki, but suddenly his ears are greeted 
with the warlike strains of the military band 
preceding a detachment on its way to some railway 
station or barracks. 

Here are the Scotch ; the bagpipes fill the air 
with their shrill music ; the men are superb ; 
their high white gaiters move lightly up and 
down, and, at every step, their pleated kilts 
expand like opening fans. 

An instant later, in some open space — Trafalgar 
8 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

Square, St. Paul's Churchyard, Covent Garden, 
or one of the Circuses — a band strikes up ; the 
musicians blow in their little short bugles, to the 
notes of which succeed the piercing fifes, backed 
up by drums ; the drumsticks rain down blows 
on the parchment, while one energetic performer, 
enveloped in a vast leather apron, deals vigorous 
alternate strokes on the big drum. And, when the 
band is not playing, the men themselves whistle 
their favourite air — the " Marseillaise " — followed 
sometimes by " Tipperary." 

In London alone, forty of these bands are 
crossing the town in all directions. Each one 
has its itinerary, ending in some open space, 
where a crowd may be gathered without disturb- 
ing the traffic. Behind the musicians come the 
recruiters. For the most part they are soldiers, 
non-commissioned officers who have been at the 
Front, and the most eloquent of whom harangue 
the loiterers. Some of them exhibit an extra- 
ordinary power of rough and facetious eloquence, 
which reminds one of those individuals employed 
to advertise the attractions of fairs, or of the 
Paris street-vendors perched on their diminutive 
platform at the end of a closed way. The London 
recruiters have as their platform the steps of 

9 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

St. Paul's Cathedral, or the enormous granite base 
which supports the Nelson column. 

It is in Trafalgar Square that the crowds are 
generally largest, and that the efforts of the re- 
cruiters are most fruitful. The orators are not 
always soldiers. I listened more than once to 
speeches by some of the most popular comic 
actors. The public, it must be confessed, was a 
little disconcerted ; these comedians, whom it was 
accustomed to see behind the footlights in their 
stage costume and make-up, were scarcely recog- 
nisable in conventional town clothes. One of 
them made a strong impression on the crowd 
which his presence had attracted. Instead of the 
droll figure, grotesquely attired, who was wont 
to make the whole audience rock with laughter, 
we saw an elegant and distinguished gentle- 
man, who spoke with gravity and emotion. 
Without a single joke or witticism, this serious 
comedian profoundly stirred the crowd by the 
expression of his patriotic sentiments. He told 
them how, following the example of many Lon- 
doners who were past the military age, he had 
enrolled himself among the special constables, and 
that he often spent the night mounting guard at 
some station or railway line or factory, where some 

10 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

mischief might be attempted — and what he did 
not mention was that, in addition to this, he spent 
all his leisure with the wounded, and showed the 
most exquisite devotion as a hospital attendant. 

The women are excellent recruiters. To be 
sure, there are some good ladies whose activity 
in this direction is a little indiscreet, and who 
demand of all and sundry : " Why are you not in 
khaki ? " — a practice which more often provokes 
a rebuff than a courteous response. But there are 
others who display more tact and achieve better 
results. The other day, a popular actress was 
hoisted on to the lofty base of the Nelson column ; 
without any pose or affectation, she succeeded in 
saying just what was required in order to decide 
some of those who were hanging back to rally 
round the flag. In the raw daylight of the great 
square, before this mixed assembly, this artist 
expressed her admiration for those who had fought 
and were fighting still — her anxious tenderness for 
the wounded whom she visited ; none but a woman 
could have apostrophised the slackers and shirkers 
in phrases of such ironical and burning scorn. 

It was a woman again who was urging those 
who were hesitating or delaying to join the colours, 
She spoke without any practised eloquence, but her 

II 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

short address made a profound impression on the 
crowd. This woman, who had been rescued from 
the Lusitania, told how her child had perished in 
the wreck, and she expressed her immense hatred 
for the assassins. 

But the Canadian sergeant is assuredly the 
most popular of those open-air speakers. He has 
come back from Ypres, where his comrades have 
perished all round him, suffocated by the poisonous 
gases, and he is availing himself of sick leave to 
recount what he has seen. He holds forth with 
incredible spirit, with inexhaustible stores of 
argument, relating stories in turn harrowing and 
comic. In a few weeks this Canadian sergeant 
induced more than three thousand volunteers to 
enlist, and I strongly suspect that this result 
procured for him a more or less indefinite extension 
of his sick leave. 

He is, in fact, amazingly persuasive. 

After a more or less brief preamble, he comes 
to direct methods. He has discerned some young 
faces in the crowd. Let those beware who have 
listened to him too attentively. All at once his 
arm is stretched out ; he is making his appeal : 
" Ho, you down there ! Come a little nearer. 
Climb up here. There's room for you." And he 

12 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

will not let go his man until he has induced him 
to fall in along the base of the column. If he 
makes his escape, he is accompanied by a volley 
of sarcasms, to which the audience add their con- 
tributions. The other day he ended his speech 
abruptly : " That's enough talking ! We want 
soldiers, not parrots. Who is ready to serve ? " 
A man of mature age, with hair turning grey, 
comes forward. " How old are you ? " " Fifty- 
three." " You had better wait ; we have not 
come to that yet ! Thank you very much." And 
at once the Canadian sergeant turns to the crowd : 
" Who will take the place of that man ? " And 
two recruits are hoisted onto the granite plat- 
form. The crowd applauds. " Quite right, boy. 
Well done ! Good luck to you ! " are shouted 
in cordial tones to those who have enlisted. With- 
out any interval, as soon as the cheers have 
subsided, the sergeant continues : 

" The other day an individual presented him- 
self at the recruiting office. Your age ? Thirty- 
six. Married ? Yes, six times ; a widower twice ; 
three times divorced. Any children ? Yes. How 
many ? Fifteen. Well, my man ! You had better 
go back home. You would cost too much in allow- 
ances for wives and young ones. We could get 

13 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

a colonel for that price ! " And the crowd laughs 
good-humouredly. Immediately he shouts a ques- 
tion : " How many Englishmen are there here ? 
Put up your hands." A few hands go up. " If 
all the rest are foreigners," observes the Canadian, 
" I had better warn the police." And suddenly, 
with outstretched finger, he apostrophises a great, 
broad-shouldered fellow : " And you there, do you 
think you can make us believe you are a foreigner, 
with a mug like that ? Come along here ; we will 
help you up, and you will be one of us. What ? 
You can't. You're an American ? Splendid. You 
will not be the only one. Only last week a batch 
of twenty presented themselves. They were asked : 
' Are you English ? ' Almost without accent they 
replied : ' Yes ! ' There was no need for us to be 
more unaccommodating than they were, and now 
they are in khaki. Some day, when the United 
States builds up an army, they will be her 
generals ! Come, make up your mind ! There's 
a neldmarshal's baton in your knapsack ! " 

His flair is remarkable, and he is extra- 
ordinarily clever in appealing to women. " Don't 
allow any but soldiers to pay court to you. If 
your lover is not in khaki, give him only black 
looks till he is. Why should young men fight and 

14 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

be killed for the sake of him ? If he persists in 
remaining a civilian, make him a bow, and come 
to see me at the recruiting office. I guarantee 
that all I bring there are men ! " 

When the meeting is ended, a procession is 
formed, with the band in front, and the recruits 
march off, accompanied by the cheers of the 
crowd, to the nearest recruiting office. The latter 
are everywhere. They have been summarily in- 
stalled in empty shops, in stray huts, in premises 
of the most varied descriptions. There, in a sim- 
plified form, the formalities of enlistment take 
place, and, on a deal table, the volunteer signs his 
engagement. After this, he goes back home, 
makes known his decision to his family, and returns 
the next day for the medical examination and to 
take the oath. With the band at their head, 
and an escort of sergeants and officers, the recruits 
set out for the stations from which they will be 
despatched to their several destinations. Street 
urchins and loungers fall into step, and take up 
in chorus the tune of " Tipperary " or the " Mar- 
seillaise " ; women — wives, sweethearts or relations 
— march by the side of the dear one whom they 
wish to accompany as far as they are allowed. 

No, indeed, the English have not been blind 
15 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

or deaf to the call of duty. England has enlisted 
in this way, to the sound of speeches and bugles, 
several millions of her sons, firmly resolved to 
make an end of the Boches. 

Bills and Placards. 

Without the aid of conscription, more than five 
million men are doing their duty. Out of this 
number, three millions have left their workshop, 
office, shop, counter or farm, in order to join the 
ranks of the fighting forces. The remainder are 
toiling to supply the equipment, armament, muni- 
tions, and all the various necessities of the army 
and the navy. 

England possessed no constitutional provision 
or law conferring on the Government and autho- 
rities the power to call up her men, as Frenchmen 
are called up. No measure had been planned 
beforehand for the purpose of mobilising a popu- 
lation which had been absolved for centuries from 
every kind of military service, and had never borne 
arms. Whenever England had needed soldiers, 
she had appealed to the good will of the nation 
and had always met with a generous response. 
It was with volunteers that England fought against 
the Revolution and against Napoleon. It was 

16 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

with volunteers that she sustained her campaign 
in the Crimea for more than two years, and, at the 
opening of the present century, her campaign in 
South Africa. 

When the present war burst upon the world — 
like a thunderbolt from a blue sky, as Lord 
Salisbury had predicted — Britannia stretched forth 
her trident over the waters, and from that 
time her formidable Navy, supported by the 
French fleet, has kept the ocean routes open for 
the Allies. 

England's participation did not cease here. 
While her squadrons were preventing the Germans 
from ravaging our coasts and from effecting a 
landing there and so taking us in the rear, the 
people of France, in arms to defend la patrie, 
pressed back the invading troops, inflicted reverses 
on them, and for long months, with a heroic 
tenacity, opposed to them an unyielding defensive, 
which enabled England to recruit and train her 
armies. 

In default of conscription, which she had 
never needed hitherto, England had recourse to 
her customary method, the method to which her 
people were accustomed. The recruiting offices 
were opened for voluntary enlistment. We have 

17 B 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

an instance of the same method in French history, 
when the National Convention declared France to 
be in danger. 

It was typical of a very individual trait of 
the English character that, the worse the news, the 
more numerous were the recruits. During those 
weeks when things looked blackest, the men came 
forward in such numbers that the organisation was 
inadequate to cope with them. 

We will examine now the curious fashion in 
which the recruiting is conducted, and the in- 
genious methods — methods which are, to be sure, 
somewhat disconcerting to a foreigner — by which 
the nation appealed to her citizens to defend 
her. 

One could hardly reproach the English with 
not thinking about the War; they do not think 
about it as we do, that is all. As Rudyard Kipling 
finely expressed it : in France, we live in the War. 
We die of it, too, he might have added. It is not 
so near to the Englishman, but, in order not to 
think of it, he would need to be blind and deaf. 

Everything reminds him that the Empire is 
at war. On the walls, on the monuments, on the 
fronts of the taxis, in the shop-windows, in the 
restaurants, the trains, the railway stations, on the 

18 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

motor-buses, in the churches and chapels, in the 
theatres and cinemas, even in the lavatories, there 
are bills and placards of all sizes to remind him 
that the British Empire is defending its existence, 
and that " Kitchener needs more men." It is 
impossible not to see them and read them. 

On the Corinthian portico of the Mansion 
House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor, 
an inscription in enormous letters on two immense 
posters reminds the crowd which, from morning 
to evening, surges in front of the Royal Exchange 
and the Bank that the country is fighting for its 
independence. On the bridge at Ludgate Hill 
is displayed the following appeal : " The Empire 
is at stake. Rally round the flag " ; and, as you 
walk down Fleet Street, the home of the Press 
and more crowded than the Rue Montmartre, 
or as you come out of St. Paul's Cathedral, or as 
you come from Blackfriars and the right bank of 
the river, or by Farringdon Street from Holborn 
or the great provision markets, this legend meets 
your eye and forces itself upon your attention. 
In the West End it is the same thing as in the 
City. On the fronts of the great hotels, from 
top to bottom, inscriptions on calico, strongly 
framed, repeat, in letters a yard high, that 

19 B 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

England is counting on the support of all her 
children. 

A complete organisation for publicity and bill- 
sticking has been evolved ; the bills are distributed 
and pasted up in millions. They are of all shapes 
and sizes — handbills, demy bills, long horizontal 
bands, narrow placards, and panels several yards 
high. They are of the most varied descriptions, and 
it would need a volume at least to describe them 
all. We will merely describe in detail a few of the 
most characteristic. 

A frame of red, white and blue, the royal arms, 
with the French mottoes : " Dieu et mon droit " 
and " Honi soit qui mal y pense " between the 
initials " G.R." ; below, in blue letters, a state- 
ment, signed by the King, to the effect that : We 
are fighting for a noble purpose, and we will not lay 
down our arms until that purpose has been achieved 
— followed by this appeal in capital letters : 
" Men of the Empire. To arms ! " and, under a 
blue line, in blue letters : " God save the King ! " 

Another, similar to our official white posters, 
reproduces the declaration made by Mr. Asquith 
at the Guildhall in November, 1914. " This is 
going to be a long-drawn struggle. We shall never 
sheathe the sword until Belgium recovers in full 

20 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

measure all and more than all that she has sacri- 
ficed, until France is adequately secured against 
the menace of aggression, until the rights of the 
smaller nationalities of Europe are placed upon 
an unassailable foundation, and until the military 
domination of Prussia is wholly and finally 
destroyed." 

A little further on, a facsimile of the seals and 
signatures appended to the treaty of 1839 which 
guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium is accom- 
panied by this commentary : " Germany has 
trampled under foot the treaty which she had 
signed. Will Britons stand on one side while 
Germany destroys an innocent nation ? " 

But the majority of them are adorned with 
illustrations, which are sometimes very happy : 
for instance, a landscape with a village burning 
in the distance ; in the foreground, an English 
foot-soldier, and, running towards him, away from 
the conflagration, a woman, with a new-born 
infant in her arms and dragging along a little child 
by the hand ; above, in great red letters, these 
two words : " Remember Belgium." Another is 
even more tragic. On a vast expanse of sea, 
against a sunset of purple and gold and crimson, 
a great steamer is sinking into the waves ; corpses 

21 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

of women and children float on the surface of the 
water ; arms are stretched out from the waves 
in despairing entreaty. In front of this tragic 
picture a superb Britannia stands erect, the long 
folds of her white robe mingle with the foam of the 
waves ; her purple mantle floats in the wind, 
fastened at her shoulder and belt and encircling 
the rich waves of her streaming golden hair. Her 
eyes are dilated with horror at the spectacle ; her 
lips are opened for a cry of abhorrence and indigna- 
tion, and, with head thrown back, she extends 
her bare arms in a fine gesture of righteous wrath ; 
her left hand is clenched, and her right hand clasps 
firmly a mariner's sword in its scabbard : " Take 
up the sword of justice ! " 

" Your King and country need you to uphold 
the honour and glory of the Empire " declares 
another placard, in the centre of which a well- 
known artist has planted a soldier in khaki, 
standing erect and vigorous on a railway platform. 
An old man, bent over a stick, holds him firmly 
by the hand, and raises up to the young man his 
old face, framed in a white beard. On the 
father's coat are pinned several war-medals, and 
the drawing bears this simple legend : " A chip 
of the old block." 

22 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

Here, on a medallion, St. George, mounted on 
a white charger, is thrusting his lance into the heart 
of a green dragon, with outstretched threatening 
jaws and talons. Here is a Tommy, in field attire, 
pipe between his teeth, smiling and shouting : 
" Come along, boys ! Enlist to-day." Further on, 
four Scotchmen, with bare knees, are marching 
abreast, laughing and singing, and above them is 
the order : " Form into line ! " By the side, 
another soldier, with trumpet to his lips, is ap- 
pealing : " Run, answer immediately, now, when 
your country needs you ! " And again : " Men, 
still more men, until the enemy is crushed ! " 

There would be no end to it if one tried to 
enumerate them all ; and I will, therefore, con- 
clude with three of the most frequent and apparently 
the most popular. One represents a bust of Lord 
Roberts, in a frame, round which is draped the 
national flag. In the foreground are displayed 
his plumed field-marshal's hat, his sword and his 
cross ; below are these words, eloquent in their 
brevity : "He did his duty. Will you do yours ? " 
In the second, a soldier, with his gun on his 
shoulder, in front of a battery in action, is clasping 
the hand of a bare-armed mechanic ; behind them 
is a confused mass of factories, mine-shafts and 

23 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

locomotives shrouded in smoke. One line above 
and two lines below assert : " They need us two to 
serve the guns. Fill up the ranks. Pile up the 
munitions ! " The third depicts, on the left, the 
stern and enigmatic countenance of Lord Kitchener, 
whilst, on the right, are printed a few sentences 
from the famous speech which the Minister for War 
delivered at the Guildhall. Lord Kitchener said : 
" Men, material and money are the immediate neces- 
sities. Does the call to duty find no response in 
you until reinforced — let us say, rather, super- 
seded — by the call of compulsion ? " And the in- 
evitable formula follows : " Enlist to-day ! " 

These appeals certainly did not go unheeded. 
Volunteers came forward in numbers ; but still 
it was not enough. Finally, a law imposed an equal 
sacrifice on all ; compulsory military service sum- 
moned to the tasks of war all fit men above the 
age of 18 and below the age of 41, without dis- 
tinction. 



24 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

III 

A Census Preparatory to Conscription 

AS I am rather more than fifteen and not yet 
sixty-five years of age, I am obliged to con- 
form with the regulations of a new kind of census. 
On a beautiful grey form, I meekly reply to a 
series of questions. I declare that I am not in 
the employment of the Government, that I am not 
trained for any work other than that upon which 
I am engaged at present, that I am not a mechani- 
cian, that I am not employed in naval construction 
or any metallurgic industry, that I am not a fitter, 
a founder, assayer, wheelwright, blacksmith, copper- 
smith, locksmith, wire-maker, gunsmith, etc., that 
I am not even engaged in agriculture, that I am not 
a farmer, nor a market gardener, nor a gardener, 
nor a shepherd, nor a stable-boy, or groom, or 
farm-boy or labourer,— in fact, nothing, not even, 
as one disrespectful wag remarked, an academician. 
Having thus complied with the demands of the 
authorities and so saved myself from incurring the 
fine of five pounds imposed on the refractory, 
let me try to explain the aim of this inquiry before 
examining its results. 

25 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

It was on the 5th of July, 1915, that the House 
of Commons, by 253 votes against 30, approved 
the National Registration Act, which the House of 
Lords adopted in its turn on the 14th of July. 
It was not yet conscription, but national inscription, 
rather in the nature of the naval inscription which 
Colbert introduced in France. 

In his advocacy of the Government scheme, 
the Minister, Mr. Long, declared : " This Bill does 
not propose to compel anyone of these people 
either to serve on the field of battle or in a factory, 
but I frankly admit that it compels these people 
to declare that they are doing nothing to aid their 
country.' ' 

Never before in the history of the English people 
had such an inventory been taken. Up to the last 
few years, the register of the population had not 
been kept with the strictness with which we are 
familiar in France ; births, marriages and deaths 
were recorded either in the parish registers or by 
a special official known as the registrar, and entirely 
independent of the body which bears a remote 
resemblance to our municipal administration. The 
Englishman was seldom required to furnish a proof 
of his identity, even for the purpose of voting, 
and we know that, in order for a person to cash 

26 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

a money order, the formalities only require him 
to give the post office employee by word of mouth 
the name of the sender. In short, England had 
no experience of conscription, of that compulsory 
military service which obliges every Frenchman 
to furnish an exact account of himself in order 
that he may not slip through the net of the cen- 
tralised administration. 

It was observed by a wag that what was re- 
markable about this national registration was that 
it had never been done before. Certainly, war 
has overturned the good old time-worn customs of 
the English ; they have adopted all kinds of inno- 
vations : the use of paper-money, evening strolls 
in unlighted streets, censorship of the Press, a 
Government made up from both parties, — all of 
which proves that England is not so much a slave 
to routine as has been pretended. 

In reality, England is resolved to gain the 
victory in the great conflict in which she is defending 
not only her liberty, but the very existence of the 
British Empire. She is throwing all her strength 
and all her resources into the balance, but she wants 
to know just exactly what these resources amount 
to. She knows the number of her warships and 
of her merchant marine, the number of her soldiers, 

27 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

and of the workmen who are working in munitions 
factories ; it is essential that she should investi- 
gate the total number of combatants and workers 
at her disposition. 

According to the result of this registration, 
there will ensue special appropriations of all the 
men and women of more than fifteen and less 
than sixty-five years of age. Besides, as Lord 
Kitchener said in his speech at the Guildhall, the 
authorities will obtain by this means a list of the 
men of from nineteen to forty years of age who are 
not employed in the manufacture of munitions or 
in indispensable agricultural and industrial occu- 
pations, and are therefore available for the Army, 
if they are physically fit to serve. 

Regarded in this light, national registration 
affords an effectual and rapid means of obtaining 
yet more soldiers and yet more munition-makers, 
and ends in the complete mobilisation of the 
nation. 

The hundred thousand volunteers — mostly 
women — who generously offered their services, 
distributed over the country, in the course of a 
week, thirty-two million forms, grey for the men, 
white for the women. According to the last 
census, there are scarcely more than twenty-three 

28 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

million persons between the ages of fifteen and 
sixty-five years, and from these have to be de- 
ducted the three million who have enlisted, the 
sailors in the Navy, and the hundreds of thousands 
of workmen corresponding to our " mobilises sur 
place," engaged in the maintenance of the railways 
and in the manufacture of military and naval 
necessities and of munitions. 

The forms contain nine questions which, at 
first sight, are clearly expressed and easily answered. 
Nevertheless, they raised innumerable problems 
and were the cause of a host of perplexities. So 
numerous were the difficulties experienced that it 
was necessary, by the medium of the Press, to fur- 
nish the public with the most unexpected instruc- 
tions and advice. The popular newspapers devoted 
whole pages to this correspondence with their 
readers, and they set their wits to work to classify 
in definite categories all 'the difficulties which 
might present themselves. This fact proves, among 
other things, that this special census was taken 
seriously, and that everyone was anxious to make 
an accurate reply, without, however, making un- 
necessary revelations of domestic secrets or of 
more or less irregular situations. Women wrote : 
" I was deserted by my husband nineteen years 

29 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

ago ; I have taken the name of another man with 
whom I lived after that, and who has died recently. 
It would cause me much distress if the people 
with whom I live were to be made acquainted 
with my secret." Other women confess that they 
have contracted a secret marriage (in England 
people can marry without the consent of their 
parents), and they ask what they shall do in order 
that their family, with whom they are still living, 
may remain ignorant of this fact. 

The interrogations of these grey and white 
forms will provoke a feeling of humility in many 
people, who will perceive at length that working- 
women and working-men who are skilled in the most 
humble trades are, at the hour when each must 
do his or her duty, more useful than the richest 
of the leisured classes or than the most leisured 
of the poorer classes. Hitherto, the members of 
the aristocratic or merely wealthy classes have 
recorded in society year-books the clubs to which 
they belong and their favourite recreations. Per- 
haps it will soon be the fashion to record a manual 
trade. 

To return to more serious matters. There can 
be no doubt that this national registration made it 
possible for the Government to fill up many gaps 

30 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

in the organisation of the resources of England. A 
section of the public blamed the Government for 
not having adopted it earlier. But those who 
are charged with the responsibility as well as the 
direction of affairs are in a position to judge the 
opportune moment for introducing a measure of 
this nature. 

We must remember that England had only 
the embryo of an army. If, in comparison with 
what was accomplished on the field of battle by the 
other Allies, her effort appeared slow, it was none 
the less formidable and unprecedented, when we 
consider all that had to be improvised, organised 
and created. 



31 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

IV 

For and Against Conscription 

TOURING the first fortnight of September, 1915, 
the campaign in favour of conscription was 
conducted in the Press with more passion than ever. 
Undoubtedly it was intended that the question 
should be put before Parliament as soon as it re- 
assembled, and debated in session. 

The controversy waxed keen. Rarely had the 
nation been faced with a problem of such grave 
consequence. Advocates and opponents were 
equally fierce. For various reasons, of which 
some were self-evident, and others, although dis- 
simulated, were not unknown, the debate degene- 
rated into a dispute, with the result that certain 
distinguished men, whose advice was sure of a 
hearing, had to counsel moderation, and to re- 
commend that the ultimate decision should be left 
with the Government and the Parliament who 
were responsible. 

Sensible folk were of opinion that excellent 
arguments deserving careful examination might be 
brought - forward in support of either theory. But 

3? 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

there was no possibility of conducting such an 
investigation in an atmosphere of distrust and 
acrimony, of threats and invectives. In order to 
keep the country united and to safeguard the 
existence of the Coalition Cabinet — among the 
members of which there existed profound diver- 
gencies of conviction and sentiment concerning 
this change of system — efforts were made to put 
an end to the quarrel, and to restore the atmo- 
sphere of tranquillity necessary for a reasonable 
discussion. 

The first question which presented itself was : 
Will conscription produce better results than have 
been obtained hitherto by the voluntary system ? 
This, it was declared, was a simple question of 
figures. 

The total number of men who had pledged 
their services since the outbreak of the War ex- 
ceeded three millions, and, notwithstanding, the 
enlistments continued at the rate of twenty-five 
thousand a week. A year previously, towards the 
middle of September, 1914, they reached the figure 
of thirty-five thousand in a single day. The 
recruiting offices did not know which way to turn, 
and, in the hope of alleviating the situation, the 
authorities added two inches to the requisite 

33 c 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

height. This was a mistake, for, according to the 
person who supplied me with these details, it 
effectually extinguished ' the enthusiasm. Next 
morning the number fell off, the measure adopted 
having conveyed the impression that the autho- 
rities had got as many men as they wanted. This 
mistake was amply repaired later, when fresh 
appeals were made, and, above all, when the Boches 
conceived the unlucky idea of coming to bombard 
the East coast with their cruisers and afterwards 
with their Zeppelins. 

The medical examination also was sufficiently 
severe to result in the rejection of a million men 
as unfit. We may say then that, of the male 
population of England between eighteen and forty 
years of age, four million men had, in September, 
1915, voluntarily offered their services to the army. 
To this number we must add a million workmen 
employed in the naval yards and workshops, both 
national and private, where they are occupied in 
constructing new units, and in executing repairs 
as soon as they are called for, in examining and 
refitting hulls and machinery, in manufacturing 
cannon, munitions, and enormous quantities of 
stores of every description. In this figure are not 
included the three hundred and fifty thousand 

34 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

men serving in the Navy at the outbreak of the 
War, whose numbers have certainly been con- 
siderably augmented since. Also, it is not thought 
fit, apparently, to give any indication of the 
number of men engaged in the manufacture of 
arms and munitions. 

It is difficult, therefore, to arrive at an exact 
total ; but it is safe to assert that five million men 
at least were engaged in occupations connected 
with the War, either serving under the flag in the 
fighting line or in the reserves, or manufacturing 
the necessary arms, munitions, stores and equip- 
ment for the army and the navy. We may 
remark, by the way, that this total does not 
include the Indian troops, nor the contingents 
furnished by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, 
South Africa, etc. 

Basing his calculation on the census of 1911, 
a defender of the compulsory system reckoned 
that the population included nine million men of 
military age, that is to say, between eighteen and 
forty-five years of age. Allowing for the exemption 
of men who are employed in national undertakings, 
both in the field of commerce, manufacture, agri- 
culture and transport, as well as of administration 
and food supplies — four million in all — there would 

35 c z 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

still remain five million men capable of serving as 
combatants. The opponents of the system would 
retort : we have just seen that the voluntary 
system has yielded, up to the present, three million 
and a half soldiers and sailors actually under arms, 
and that enlistments continue at the rate of 
one hundred thousand a month, and that there 
are a million unfit. We are not very far from 
the five million men available for active military 
service. 

The partisans of the compulsory system did not 
in any way deny the excellent results achieved up 
to the present by the voluntary system, but they 
asserted that only compulsion could bring to the 
colours all the shirkers and slackers, who either 
evaded their obligation or simply disregarded it. 
They therefore object against the voluntary system 
that it robs the nation of the flower of her sons, 
for those who enlist spontaneously are men of 
courage, enthusiasm, initiative and intelligence, men 
endowed with the spirit of sacrifice, while the 
pusillanimous, the slothful, the indifferent and the 
selfish remain at home. To which it was replied 
that it will not be a pleasant situation for anyone, 
after the war, to be numbered among the latter ; 
and, as regards the value of their services, some 

36 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

prudent souls questioned whether it would not 
be better to leave these very unwarlike spirits to 
hide their heads in their shops or offices ? 

One of the great arguments invoked in favour of 
compulsory service was the excellent impression 
which its adoption would produce in France ; 
whilst the Germans, it was alleged, would be simply 
prostrated. Certainly, in such questions, the moral 
factor is not to be despised, but we suspect that 
such a measure involves results of a much more 
practical order. 

Let us beware of tampering with the voluntary 
system, urged its defenders ; it belongs to the 
national tradition ; no other method is so rational, 
just and effective ; and the majority of the public 
do not desire any other. Up to the present, the 
voluntary system has supplied soldiers more rapidly 
than we can arm and equip them. Moreover, 
it enables us to retain the necessary men for those 
industrial and commercial operations which are 
indispensable for the maintenance of economic 
prosperity, and upon which depends the whole 
financial system of the Allies. We ought not to 
deprive the shipbuilding yards of their trained 
workers, because we shall never have a sufficiently 
large merchant marine for the transports. 

37 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

Without denying the relative justice of these 
arguments, the advocates of universal service re- 
plied that the necessities of the War demanded the 
militarisation of the whole forces of the nation, 
and that it was more important to beat the Ger- 
mans and finish the War than to preserve the com- 
mercial prosperity of England, since a German 
victory would have fatal results for her. Every 
day they clamoured more energetically for what 
they deemed the fairer system — equal sacrifice for 
all ; they declared that the bulk of the nation 
was in favour of compulsion, and they accused 
the Government of weakness, and of belonging 
to the pusillanimous minority who recoiled from 
this measure. 

The more violent the attacks against the Govern- 
ment, the more obstinate was the defence. Thus 
the question trailed along for a considerable time 
in the rut of politics ; and it is difficult to say 
whether these disputes hastened or retarded the 
opportune moment for a final settlement. 

It must be admitted that the Government 
displayed extraordinary skill in avoiding the neces- 
sity of declaring for or against conscription. The 
Press declared more or less openly which Ministers 
were supporters and which opponents of the measure, 

38 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

but none of these Ministers ever publicly expressed 
an opinion on the subject. The watchword seemed 
to be to keep aloof from all popular polemics, to 
avoid compromising the indispensable unity of the 
Cabinet, and to make the ultimate decision without 
appearing to yield to external pressure. This 
attitude, which might appear one of inertia, really 
preserved the independence of the Government, 
who were not to be restrained by any external 
consideration from enforcing, at the proper moment, 
a law which would no longer meet with dangerous 
opposition. 

While the hostility was gradually diminishing, 
Mr. Asquith continued to assert, in the name of 
the English nation, in the name of the whole 
British Empire, the unswerving will to conquer, 
no matter what the price. In the meantime, in 
various ways, the army was increasing, munitions 
of war were being manufactured, the military organ- 
isation was being improved. After the National 
Register, recourse was had to Lord Derby's 
scheme, which achieved excellent results, despite 
its critics. Then, one fine day, England suddenly 
became unanimous in demanding that system of 
compulsory service which had roused so much 
repugnance, and Parliament refused to admit 

39 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

any further compromise. The Government had 
only to change a few formulae in the scheme 
which it had prepared, and an overwhelming 
majority voted in favour of the much-discussed 
system of compulsion. " Yes/' said the more 
violent supporters of the project, " but it was a 
year too late ! " — which is by no means certain. 



40 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 



The Predictions of Mr. H. G. Wells 

TLS se realisent, les reves prophetiques de H. G. 
Wells ! " declared Anatole France, in an 
admirable article written for that beautiful " Book 
of France," published under the most distinguished 
auspices, thanks to the generous activity of Miss 
Winifred Stephens, and sold for the benefit of the 
funds in aid of our invaded provinces. By a 
humorous coincidence, it was Wells himself who 
was entrusted with the task of translating this 
page by Anatole France. 

We know that Wells, like Jules Verne before 
him, has, for the last twenty years, furnished us 
in his works with disconcerting descriptions of 
future events. 

Moreover, from his very first work, " The Time 
Machine," the great English novelist has displayed 
an extraordinary creative power, aided by an 
abundantly fertile imagination. It is this strength 
of imagination which Wells has placed at the 
disposal of his country to-day. 

41 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

In a book which I helped to translate twelve 
years ago, Wells described, with the most amazing 
exactitude, what would be the nature of the next 
war. I have re-read this chapter of " Anticipa- 
tions " ; it is entitled " War in the 20th Century/' 
and when one considers that it was written before 
the campaign in Manchuria, the prophetic faculty 
of the author seems really supernatural. 

H. G. Wells has followed the vicissitudes of the 
present war with a passionate interest. I reminded 
him of that famous chapter in " Anticipations " 
in which he showed greater discernment than the 
professional theorists. He only smiled. 

Then we talked : 

' You have repeatedly foreseen this cataclysm. 
You described it, for instance, in ' The War of the 
Worlds,' in which you introduced the Martians 
to this planet, and pictured them as perpetrating 
the massacres and devastations which the Germans 
have not hesitated to commit. And in that amazing 
story, ' The War in the Air,' it was the Germans 
whom you conceived as steeping the world in fire 
and blood. In that book you drew an implacably 
lifelike caricature of the Kaiser and his heir, in 
which they display the arrogance of degenerates 
and lunatics drunken with pride. You make 

42 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

them destroy the capitals of Europe and the 
enormous cities of the United States. You 
described the secret preparations of the Germans, 
and predicted the attack which they were 
premeditating . . ." 

" That proves/' interrupted Wells, " that, if 
I foresaw the Teutonic crisis, I had not guessed 
that the United States would remain neutral, and 
would exhibit so much tolerance for the intrigues 
of the pro-Germans. But we will say no more of 
my pretended vaticinations, nor exaggerate their 
importance." 

" Pray do not let your modesty take offence. 
And now tell me what your predictions are at the 
present moment/ ' 

" Oh ! Oh ! You are trying to entice me on 
to dangerous ground. The part of a commentator 
on actual facts is less easy than that of the weaver 
of fantastic romances. The novelist has only to 
be logical ; he confines himself to one or more 
propositions, which he develops according to the 
rules of logic ; he establishes a foundation upon 
which he constructs eventualities which are firmly 
linked together. But reality is far more fantastic 
than imagination." 

" Indeed ! " 

43 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

" You think that is a paradox ? Yet nothing 
is more true. Whatever capricious fancies my 
imagination may conceive, I am obliged to observe 
the rules of logic and probability and to combine 
events in a conventional order. Now, in the 
present War, in all wars, it is the unexpected that 
happens. Do you believe that the Germans had 
foreseen the battle of the Marne ? No. And by 
many people in your country as well as ours it 
was regarded as a miracle ! " 

" The Germans claim that they accomplished a 
strategic retreat." 

"To be sure ! But Joffre accomplished some- 
thing better." 

" Then, according to you, there can only be 
unforeseen events." 

' You are too logical, like every good French- 
man, and like a novelist of imagination. I only 
mean that the present war exceeds all that one had 
imagined, all that one had feared. We had cradled 
ourselves in chimerical illusions ; we had fancied 
that the belligerents would conform rigidly to the 
innumerable conventions of international law, just 
as two boxing champions respect the rules of a 
certain code of fighting. The champions of Kultur 
have changed all that. In the first place, they 

44 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

asserted that, from the moment that a state of 
war had been declared, all promises and engagements 
ceased to be binding. 

" Then they proceeded to commit every kind 
of atrocity and devastation, upon the principle 
that it was necessary to terrify and paralyse 
their adversary in this way — in which they 
made the mistake of judging others by them- 
selves — a mistake from which the Allies will be 
able to profit when they win a decisive victory 
over the Boches. When the Germans are de- 
feated, they will soon become as humbly obsequious 
as they were after Jena. We must not forget that 
Bismarck himself said : ' We Germans are a race 
of lackeys.' " 

" And the Prussians are the swaggering masters 
of these lackeys." 

" Yes, and will have to be replaced by the 
Allies for a little while. But we have not reached 
that stage yet ! At the present moment we see 
them employing insensate methods for subduing 
the victorious resistance of the Allies. First of all, 
they hurled themselves in mass on a country 
without adequate means of defence ; then they 
dug themselves into underground cavities ; then 
they had recourse to chemistry — to gas and 

45 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

asphyxiating shells, jets of flaming petrol and 
corrosive fluids . . . " 

" The Germans," continued Wells, " have taken 
the responsibility of infringing rules which they 
had promised to observe, but they have no ex- 
clusive property in the means which they employ. 
They apply certain scientific facts which are in the 
public domain, and I have much more faith in the 
French or the English as regards genuine innovations 
or original discoveries. There is infinitely more 
wit and initiative in your nation and ours." 

" And that is why you yourself have taken the 
initiative on several occasions ? " 

" You mean that I recommend the employment 
of aeroplanes and airships of all descriptions by the 
Allies. In individual operations, as well as in 
concerted raids, the French and English show them- 
selves superior to their adversaries, who rely chiefly 
on their vulnerable Zeppelins. I am convinced 
that the individual value of our airmen is very 
much greater than that of the Boche airmen. As 
for air work in squadron, it is necessary for the 
execution of given orders that every individual 
airman should be capable of initiative, decision, 
and independence. Our airmen furnish daily evi- 
dence of these qualities, and for this reason I should 

4 6 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

like to see squadrons consisting of a thousand aero- 
planes fly over the enemy lines, and burn and 
destroy the German centres, where the engines of 
war and munitions are manufactured, and where 
supplies of food and equipment are stored up. 
Can you picture a fleet of a thousand aeroplanes 
rising up from your French plains and, a few hours 
later, raining down thousands of incendiary pro- 
jectiles on the Krupp factories, and those of West- 
phalia ? And this first squadron might be followed, 
hour after hour, by one, two, three — ten similar 
squadrons, which would hurl yet more bombs, in 
thousands, to accelerate the conflagration and 
destruction. Doubtless, these heroic airmen would 
not all return ; but the losses — which would certainly 
be less severe than those which the Allies are 
enduring every day — would be, to a certain extent, 
compensated by the enormous result obtained — 
a material result which would hamper the mur- 
derous activity of the Germans, and a moral result 
owing to the effect which it would produce : 
consternation and frantic and impotent wrath 
beyond the Rhine, hope and encouragement in the 
nations who are fighting against barbarism." 

" Did you not also suggest the creation of a 
Board of Inventions ? " 

47 






BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

" Yes, and I indicated the lines upon which it 
might act with advantage. I hope that the same 
is being done with you. France is the country of 
inventors par excellence ; and our men of science 
will compete with yours in ingenuity and learning. 
Here, again, it is a question of individual worth, 
and we must use every means of profiting by this 
advantage." 

" No doubt, since your letters to The Times 
demanding the formation of this Board, you have 
been assailed with innumerable suggestions ? " 

" Yes, I have been overwhelmed, submerged by 
them ! Unfortunately, three-fourths are unwork- 
able and devoid of any practical utility. But many 
of the ideas are very interesting. The question of 
defence against submarines is one which appears 
to engage the special attention of our inventors. 
My greatest difficulty is in explaining to those who 
offer utterly absurd suggestions that the putting 
into practice of their invention would cost more 
than it is worth. They seldom succeed in grasping 
the fact that the thousands of boats of all sizes 
which enter or leave the ports of the British Isles 
and France every week run so very little risk 
that it is infinitely preferable to pay even a 
high insurance premium and save the enormous 

48 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

expenses which their system of protection would 
involve." 

" Can you see any final and rapid method of 
breaking through the German lines ? " 

" I have already suggested great flying squadrons, 
which should destroy systematically all the great 
centres for German supplies behind their lines, 
demolish unceasingly their roads, railways, bridges, 
stations, and render almost impossible the pro- 
visioning of the enemy and the transport of troops 
and munitions. We must construct ten thousand 
— twenty thousand aeroplanes ! " 

" What a flight of imagination ! " 

" Why not ? It costs less money and less 
time to construct than a gun or a submarine, 
which require special factories and tools." 

" Did you not somewhere describe the exploits 
of creatures cased in enormous cylinders who 
traverse the most formidable trenches and take the 
occupants between two fires ? Why should we not 
have recourse to the heat ray and the tripods of the 
Martians ? " 

" For that purpose, the simplest plan would 
be to ask our Ministers of Foreign Affairs to confer 
promptly with the ministry of interplanetary 
relations probably existing in the planet Mars and 

49 D 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

beg the despatch of only half-a-dozen of their 
formidable warriors . . . Unless German pro- 
paganda has already been active up there, and the 
executive has allowed itself to be hoodwinked 
by the partisans of neutrality at any price . . . 
But, without this problematic assistance, the Allies 
will conquer the Germans. All weapons are good 
against adversaries who have no sense of honour, 
and it will not be long before we make an appro- 
priate answer to Germanic methods. You see 
every day what is being done here ; you perceive 
with what energy the English nation and the whole 
British Empire are devoting themselves to the 
preparation of the military effort, thanks to which 
we shall be able to support your heroic troops on 
the Continent more and more effectively, while 
our squadrons guard the ocean routes and protect 
our coasts and yours . . ." 



50 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

VI 

Lord Kitchener inspects his Armies 

TT is " somewhere in England." The country is 
very charming ; the towns are numerous and 
picturesque, with interesting relics of former days ; 
there are intersecting railways, and there are 
sinuous roads climbing the hills and forming a 
network on the plains. This delightful spot was 
once one of the favourite resorts of excursionists 
from London ; in summer it was the scene of many 
happy holidays, of pleasant walks across the fields, 
in the shady woods, or on the high downs covered 
with heather and gorse. It was the resort of sports- 
men, too, for the game is abundant „ . . . . 
The particular sport that is being prepared for 
in these districts at present has completely trans- 
formed them. You speed along in a motor-car for 
whole days, and at every moment you are be- 
wildered by new sights which meet the eye. Whole 
towns have sprung up, whose populations have 
been gathered from far and wide, and who are, for 
the most part, clad in khaki uniform. It is a 
pandemonium of unimaginable activity. 

51 D 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

From the centre which regulates the workings 
of this formidable machine, I made excursions in 
all directions, visiting, exploring, making inquiries 
to satisfy my curiosity, when a note arrived at 
headquarters just when I happened to be there. 
It merely announced that the " S. of S." would 
come the next day to inspect all the troops. There 
were brief indications of how the day would be 
spent. K. would be at such-and-such a place at 
between 10.45 and 11. 10, at such-and-such another 
place at between 11.25 an d 12.45, and so on until 
he had inspected all. I obtained permission to 
attach myself to the staff who were to receive 
and accompany the mysterious personage who 
is indicated by the initials " S. of S.," which 
stands for Secretary of State ; and " K," of 
course, was Lord Kitchener of Khartoum — a 
double K. very preferable to the food-substance 
described by a double K. which is consumed by 
the Boches. 

The unexpectedness of this intimation did not 
appear to cause the least consternation among the 
officers who had to order and arrange the move- 
ments of the troops for the next day. When I 
remarked that the notice was rather short, one of 
the officers with whom I was talking replied : 

52 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

" That's he, he is always like that, and a very 
good thing too." 

The staff set to work, steadily, calmly, with 
the tranquil certainty of accomplishing their task, 
and I could not doubt that they would succeed. 
For these officers do not grudge their time 
or their trouble. One of them said to me : 
" K . . . sets us an example : he works with- 
out respite and without leisure, and he knows 
that we do the same." 

The next morning, at an early hour, we are 
on the road. Our motor-car is constantly obliged 
to stop and give way to columns of infantry, 
cavalry, artillery and supplies. Moreover, the 
direction of the traffic at all the turnings and 
cross-roads is admirably superintended by a special 
military police ; wherever it is necessary, there 
are policemen on foot and on horseback, with a 
red armlet bearing the letters " M.P." — initials 
which are generally found after the names of 
members of parliament, but which, in this 
instance, merely indicate members of the Military 
Police. 

The troops make their way to sites which will 
afford them ample space to assemble and deploy. 
Although this district affords very spacious plains 

53 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

and moors and uplands, no one of these would be 
vast enough to accommodate such huge numbers 
of men ; for the troops whom their leader will inspect 
to-day are several times as numerous as the army 
which England had long maintained on the Con- 
tinent, and which the Kaiser with such foolhardy 
arrogance qualified as contemptible. 

Battalions and regiments go by in high spirits 
and good humour ; the infantry whistle and sing, 
and just as I had noticed among the British troops 
in Flanders, the " Marseillaise " is their favourite 
song ; I must confess even that " Tipperary " 
seems to have lost much of its former popularity. 

We find ourselves on a road bordered with turf 
and straighter and broader than most of the roads 
in England. Some motor-cars are there already ; 
others are arriving, bringing the generals and the 
staff. Soon, two motor-cars coming from the 
direction of London descend upon us like an ava- 
lanche. Promptly, nimbly, Lord Kitchener alights, 
while, at a signal from the general in command, 
the vanguard of the column begins to move. There 
are greetings and hand-clasps ; the motor-cars 
draw up in front ; and we stay there, with our 
backs to the sun, while regiments, brigades and 
divisions file past under the attentive eye of the 

54 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

chief. Section after section receive the same com- 
mand : " Eyes left ! " followed by a sharp " Eyes 
front ! " at a suitable distance. 

The officers of lower rank are all very young, 
but their gravity, their martial air and their sturdy 
sportsmanlike bearing give them a very distin- 
guished appearance. 

On the grass, at the very edge of the road, the 
chief stands erect, saluting the officers with his 
hand, whilst his eyes sweep the ranks. All eyes 
are turned towards him, and the men draw them- 
selves up and march their best, so that the man to 
whose appeal the nation has responded so mag- 
nificently may be content with his Army. There 
is something very moving in the sight of all these 
volunteers who have enlisted in time of war, and 
in order to go to war. The greater number of 
these captains, these lieutenants and sub-lieu- 
tenants, all these men, non-commissioned officers 
and privates have, of their own free will, left their 
home, their workshop, their office, their employ- 
ment, in order to go out and defend " the existence 
of the Empire," as a sergeant said to me, and 
" to prevent their children from becoming Bodies." 

The march proceeds without any accompaniment 
of bands or fifes, or drums or trumpets. 

55 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

There is no parade of flags or banners, of 
ornaments or plumes or gold lace ; the lieutenants 
and sub-lieutenants carry their rifles just as their 
men do ; and also a kind of knapsack hung low 
on the back. The arms and equipment are im- 
peccable ; the carriages for drinking-water, the 
field-kitchens, all the material is in perfect trim. 
The khaki hue of the uniforms against the dark 
green of the hedges in front is not unpleasing seen 
in mass, as I see it now. The only patches of 
colour are the red bands on the caps and collars of 
the staff officers, and yonder, at the cross-roads, 
the light dresses of the women and girls who had 
waved their handkerchiefs when Lord Kitchener 
passed ; some had pointed cameras in our direction, 
but the military police drove them off without 
mercy, and were even so cruel as to interpose, 
between these indiscreet ladies and ourselves, the 
far from transparent screen of their horses. 

I have seen Lord Kitchener in civilian attire ; 
I have seen him in the sombre blue uniform of a 
field-marshal ; I saw him at the Guildhall when he 
delivered, or rather read, a speech on recruiting. 
In each case, he was a fine figure, though perhaps a 
little stern and unbending. "I am a soldier," 
he repeats, when he has to appear at these assem- 

56 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

blies ; and perhaps he is apologising for an em- 
barrassment which is not discernible, but which he 
must feel, in spite of the cheers and acclamations 
which greet him. But it was in his khaki costume 
that Lord Kitchener really gave me the impression 
of a leader. Buttoned up in a dark-coloured 
jacket or tunic, he is the officer in mufti, whom we 
can recognise among a thousand ; but he is a 
" soldier " from head to foot in his field uniform, 
with his spurs, his leather gaiters, his ample riding- 
breeches, his loosely-fitting tunic held in at the 
waist by a belt of yellow leather supported by a 
shoulder-piece. The red and gold decoration on 
the collar, the red band on the cap, and, on the 
peak, the double garland of gold leaves, are the 
distinctive signs of his rank. 

In London, in public, the face is, so to speak, 
closed, the features are immobile ; the solid jaw 
and the heavy moustache (still very fair) give an 
impression of strong will, the sternness of which is 
belied by the blue eyes, which express a kind of 
astonishment, doubtless the result of a strong 
desire to be somewhere else. As I saw him, during 
the whole of that day, the eyelids lowered over 
the eyes robbed them of that look of astonishment, 
and rendered them, on the contrary, keen and 

57 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

penetrating. With untiring persistence he sur- 
veyed and inspected the soldiers, rank after rank, 
and the material drawn by vigorous teams. From 
the moment that the first platoons opened the pro- 
cession, he began to smile, and his expression was 
one which none of his portraits have ever revealed. 
The darting glance from under the eyebrows, the 
motion of the jaw for the utterance of cordial words, 
the movement of the moustache above the smiling 
lips ; sometimes a genuine sprightliness animated 
his features ; the satisfaction of the chief radiated 
good humour. 

On horseback, he has a firm and easy carriage ; 
his left hand holds the reins, and his right hand, 
when the horse is walking, is laid on the haunch. 
As a horseman, Lord Kitchener has a very fine 
presence. 

Twenty-five minutes are allowed for lunch. 
The motor-cars snort and set off. Finally, we 
arrive at the entrance of a circus, or rather a valley, 
longer than it is broad ; the motor-car crosses 
some meadows and climbs the side of the hill. 
Viewed from here, the spectacle is prodigious. 
At the bottom of the plain, towards the West, 
some regiments of cavalry are grouped in a sombre 
mass ; in the foreground, stretching right up to us, 

58 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

covering an enormous expanse, some batteries of 
artillery, fully equipped with guns and ammunition 
waggons, extend their dense lines northwards up 
to the base of the rising ground. On the right, 
there is infantry as far as one can see. It is well 
that the inspection should conclude with such 
masses, in this magnificent setting, like a trans- 
formation scene — a cruel and tragic transformation 
scene, since all these men are armed to kill, animated 
by the desire to kill, and to kill as many of them 
as possible ! — and all those grey cannon, let us 
hope that they, too, will kill, and that all those 
horses, in their furious epic gallops, will bear 
their riders straight to an odious enemy, whom 
they will hew down with the whole strength of 
their arms ! 

On the crest of some bare hills we perceive, 
by the aid of glasses, masses of cavalry who are 
performing evolutions ; at the other extremity, 
some troops of infantry appear against the horizon 
and descend the slope. On the shoulder which 
terminates the plateau in front of us a camp of 
German prisoners is installed behind a strong 
network of barbed iron wire ; since morning, on 
the two roads which intersect at one of the corners 
of their camp, they have seen the passage of those 

59 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

interminable columns of soldiers, well armed, well 
equipped ; they have seen those batteries of 
artillery, with their superb teams ; those well- 
mounted cavalry, and all the fantastic equipment ; 
in the sky, some aeroplanes are manoeuvring, the 
hum of their machines alternately diminished and 
intensified by the wind ; and they must have made 
some melancholy reflections . . . 

In a twist of the valley, where once the cattle 
and mares with their colts grazed peacefully, we 
now see only the roofs of factories, from which rise 
up high smoking chimneys ; further on, the 
voluminous bulk of a shed for dirigibles rises above 
the more low-pitched edifices, and aeroplanes pass 
in and out of it lightly and swiftly. 

From the step of the motor-car, Lord Kitchener 
has transferred himself to the saddle without a 
moment's interval. The procession of the staff- 
officers sets off at full gallop towards the cavalry, 
and in the distance, through field-glasses, and by 
the aid of the standards, one can follow its mean- 
derings through the compact formations. Then 
follows the review of the artillery, and already the 
cavalry have begun to move, forming into a column 
and setting off towards their barracks. Then 
comes the turn of the batteries, and one seems to 

60 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

be watching some vast conjuring trick : those 
masses of cannon and ammunition waggons seem 
to be unwound endlessly, like miles of ribbon from 
the sleeve of a conjurer. 



61 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

VII 

Ireland united against the Enemy 

'YXTE remember that before the War a serious 
conflict was dividing Ireland, and certain 
prophets of evil predicted the gravest calamities. 
This was sufficient for the obtuse and crafty 
German to anticipate revolt and civil war, just as 
he anticipated them in Egypt, India, and wherever 
else it might be convenient. 

I asked Mr. T. P. O'Connor, who has been an 
Irish member of the House of Commons since 1880, 
to explain, for the benefit of the French public, 
why the Irish Nationalists were so unhesitating in 
making common cause with England. 

Keen, alert, vigorous, with a tall, erect figure 
and broad shoulders, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, after a 
brilliant academic career, entered the profession of 
journalism, and he has scarcely ever abandoned it, 
notwithstanding the absorbing activity of his 
political career. He founded and edited in turn 
The Star, The Sun, The Weekly Sun, M.A.P., T.P.'s 
Weekly, and he has published important works on 
Disraeli, Parnell, Gladstone, Napoleon, etc. 

62 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

In our conversation, Mr. T. P. O'Connor revived 
his recollections of 1870, when he was already 
sub-editor of the Daily Telegraph. The ill-advised 
policy of Napoleon III. had alienated the sym- 
pathies of England, and Bismarck had published 
diplomatic documents proving that Napoleon had 
proposed the partition of Belgium. Nothing could 
have more exasperated English opinion. Notwith- 
standing, the young Irish journalist was and re- 
mained from that time one of the most militant 
friends of France, and he recalls an evening when, 
after the German arrogance and excesses had 
reversed the popular sympathies, the " Wacht am 
Rhein " was hissed in a famous music-hall, while the 
audience applauded the " Marseillaise." 

In the course of the last half-century, Mr. T. P. 
O'Connor has written enormously ; he has spoken 
even more. He is one of the most eloquent orators, 
not only in Parliament, but in the whole country. 
As a popular speaker, he has scarcely any rival. 
Recently, there was an Irish manifestation in 
London, which assumed formidable proportions. 
Those who took part in it marched in four columns 
to Trafalgar Square. An immense procession was 
formed. Behind a band, in which the big drum 
played a conspicuous part, came a landau in which 

63 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

" T. P." — the popular designation for Mr. T. P. 
O'Connor — was seated by the side of Sergeant 
O'Leary — a heroic Irishman whose brilliant actions 
have won him a coveted decoration. In all the 
roads leading up to the famous square the crowd 
was clapping and cheering. All were wearing the 
green emblem of Erin, and holding in their hands 
a little green flag with a gold harp. The four 
columns blended, without any disorder, into one 
single column, which proceeded towards Hyde Park, 
through the wide aristocratic streets of the West 
End; and all along the route, in Pall Mall and 
Piccadilly, the fronts of the big clubs and luxurious 
hotels were crowded from top to bottom with 
innumerable spectators, cheering and applauding 
the famous orator and the heroic sergeant, who 
represented so well noble Ireland. 

Soon, over the wide lawns of the Park, the 
crowd collected in unimaginable multitudes. Four 
trucks, decked with the colours of Ireland and the 
Allies, had been prepared to receive the orators, 
Nationalist deputies for the most part ; and round 
these improvised platforms, almost too narrow 
to accommodate their occupants, the crowd 
accumulated. From each of these rostrums in 
turn, T. P. O'Connor, accompanied by O'Leary, 

64 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

harangued the multitude. It was an unforgettable 
scene. In a powerful voice, the great orator 
explained why the Allies were resisting with all 
their might the hateful German aggression, and 
why it was the duty of every fit man to take 
up arms to fight at the side of heroes like Sergeant 
O'Leary. 

I had succeeded in perching myself on the 
wheel of a cart, and as far as my eyes could reach, 
as far as the dark background of the great trees 
in the Park, I could see only a vast sea of listeners 
thrilled with one common emotion ; and I know 
that, after this gigantic manifestation, the recruiting 
offices were besieged, and the Irish regiments were 
swelled by a generous contingent. 

The man who could thus sway the emotions of 
the crowd had been in France a little while before, 
at the head of a deputation of Catholic Ireland to 
the Archbishop of Paris and the French Govern- 
ment. In the office, crammed with books, where 
he receives me, I see, on the chimney, a photograph 
of this delegation grouped round M. Viviani and 
M. Delcasse. 

All at once we begin to speak about the War, 
and the part which is being played in it by the 
British Empire. 

65 E 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

" Do not doubt," said my famous companion, 
" that we are ready here for every sacrifice. There 
has been talk of our slowness, and not without 
reason ; but one must always allow for the tem- 
perament of a nation, its habits, customs and 
institutions ; and when England is concerned, it 
is important to remember that she has never had 
compulsory military service, because the nation 
has enjoyed a sense of security behind the shelter 
of her coasts since the eleventh century. Those who 
know what it means to arouse the imagination of 
the people, to inculcate new conceptions into the 
masses, will understand why England has appeared 
slow to Frenchmen, who were organised to respond 
to the appeal to arms at the first moment of danger. 

" Do not lose sight of this fact : that England 
had agreed, on the proof of a casus belli, to send to 
the Continent the contingent of troops which she 
had at her disposal, namely, one hundred and sixty 
thousand men. Well, only a year after she had 
placed herself at the side of France, she sent more 
than a million men to the fields of battle ; she was 
engaged in campaigns in the Dardanelles, on the 
Suez Canal, the Persian Gulf, the Cameroons, in 
East Africa, while Botha's army conquered German 
West Africa. Her fleet paralysed the activities of 

66 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

the German squadrons and of German maritime 
commerce. England has enlisted three million 
men ; she will enlist four million, five million, if 
necessary ; she will equip them ; she will arm them, 
and they will go out and fight by the side of the 
French armies against the common foe. 

" The Irish have made a splendid response 
to the appeal to arms. We have always been a 
nation of fighters. Our Celtic legends are stories 
of war and battles. The Celtic imagination has 
realised vividly the importance of the conflict 
which is raging, and we who have been fighting 
for so long to defend our own nationality could 
not but side with those who are defending the 
principle of nationality. This was a cause which 
ought to silence all dissension and provoke an 
absolute union. The Germans were, no doubt, 
very surprised and disappointed ; but the Irish 
know that those who oppress the Poles and the 
people of Alsace-Lorraine, the Roumanians and the 
Jugo-Slavs cannot promise a liberty which, indeed, 
has not been asked or expected of them. 

" The voluntary enlistments in Ireland have 
been very numerous. Villages of from three hun- 
dred to four hundred inhabitants have furnished 
from sixty to eighty men. In the towns, large 

67 E 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

numbers have offered themselves for war-work 
and the manufacture of munitions ; and the sub- 
scriptions to the War Loan still continue. More 
than two million and a half Irishmen in England 
are members of the United Irish League of Great 
Britain, of which I have been President for the last 
thirty years. Our League had branches every- 
where, in more than sixty of the big towns. Well, 
at the present moment, it is completely dis- 
organised because the members of our committees, 
no less than the ordinary members, enlisted on the 
outbreak of the War. We have lost in this way 
more than one hundred thousand members. In 
all, there are a quarter of a million Irish under 
arms. 

" I could instance innumerable facts to prove 
how heartily the Irish are at one with the Allies. 
The other day, in the train for Liverpool, I met an 
old Irishman, who told me that his daughter, living 
in London, had just lost her husband, who had been 
killed in the Dardanelles. He had spent some days 
with her, and he was still very much distressed 
at his daughter's grief. I asked him if he did not 
now long for a speedy peace. The old man drew 
himself up, looked me straight in the face, and said, 
with clenched teeth : ' Ah ! no ; we must fight 

68 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

now more than ever, right to the end, right to the 
goal ! ' They are all like that. 

" Yes, all, and it is the first time that there 
has been such a unanimity. The South-African 
War encountered a violent opposition : a whole 
section of public opinion regarded it as a violation 
of the respect due to nationalities, and it is because 
we are now defending the principle of nationality 
that clear-sighted and sensible Ireland is marching 
with one mind and one heart against the invader 
of Belgium and France." 



6 9 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 



VIII 

At the Camp of the Canadians 

(^)N the first anniversary of the declaration of 
war, the Dominions and the Crown Colonies 
expressed their resolution to continue the struggle 
to a triumphant issue, and to support the Mother 
Country " to the last man and the last shilling." 

In India, in Canada, in Australia, in New 
Zealand, in South Africa, the anniversary was 
commemorated by unforgettable sessions of the 
parliaments or by enthusiastic popular meetings. 
The whole British Empire, with one heart and one 
impulse, joined with the other civilised nations 
who were compelled to resist Germanic aggression 
and to crush the enemy. 

The support which Canada furnished to the 
Mother Country surpassed all expectations. In 
men alone, the Dominion furnished a contingent 
larger than the expeditionary force which England 
had at her disposal in the first month of hostilities. 
A poition of these troops were at the front at the 
end of six months. Soon after, I found myself 

70 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

in their midst, in a part of Belgium which had been 
devastated, and I was a witness of the heroism 
with which these regiments of volunteers opposed 
a victorious resistance round Ypres to the fierce 
attacks of the Germans, who launched their 
asphyxiating gases without succeeding in breaking 
the Canadian front. 

I obtained permission to visit the immense 
camp in England where the Canadian divisions 
are constantly training, receiving the new battalions 
which are despatched unceasingly from the other 
side of the Atlantic, and sending continual reinforce- 
ments to France. 

At headquarters I presented the letters with 
which General Hughes, Minister of Defence, had 
been kind enough to supply me, and I was 
accorded a very friendly reception. Formerly, in 
peace time, I have traversed this region on foot 
or by means of various conveyances. I have 
visited this camp, one of the most important in 
England, frequently ; I have seen the English regi- 
ments file past on a fine Sunday morning, in their 
busbies and red cloaks ; but I confess that the 
scene is entirely strange to me now. There are 
the same barracks and yards, but all round, in all 
directions, there have sprung up a multitude of 

71 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

structures, built of wood or of corrugated iron, 
and in the distance, on the slopes of the hills, in 
the valleys between them, groups of tents have 
been erected. 

After a rapid and frugal repast at the staff 
mess, I get into the motor-car with the officer 
who is to accompany me through the maze of 
the encampments, and who is a French Canadian, 
from Quebec. It would take too much time to 
relate in detail all that I saw there. The Canadian 
army — for it is a veritable army which has come 
from the immense provinces of the Dominion — is 
undergoing in this camp the most complete and 
efficient training. All the corps — infantry and 
cavalry, engineers and artillery — are practising 
with an extraordinary application, whilst the 
organisation and material are being constructed 
and perfected 

We must not lose sight of the fact that the 
Canadian army, like the whole British army, is 
obliged at one and the same time to instruct the 
men and to manufacture all the unimaginable 
equipment, armament and material which are 
required for modern war. 

I was told by professional soldiers of unques- 
tionable authority that the work of the men 

72 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

left nothing to be desired. Through all the long 
months of winter, spring and summer, these volun- 
teers, full of an admirable good-will and impatient 
to be sent to the front, endured the fatigues of the 
most severe training, of marches by day and by 
night, and of all the arduous exercises necessitated 
by the methods of modern war. 

Battalions or whole regiments set off in field 
uniform, sleeping in the open fields, along the 
roads, lodging with the inhabitants, engaging in 
lengthy manoeuvres ; or else, in the neighbourhood 
of the camp, they dig trenches, the lines of which 
we can see intersecting one another, scaling the 
hills, and scoring their grassy flanks. 

In a sunken road, very narrow in places, sturdy 
teams of horses are dragging along pieces of heavy 
artillery with perfect ease. Further on, a race- 
course has been transformed into an artillery park, 
into which the batteries re-enter on their return 
from manoeuvres. The waggons turn without a 
hitch in the winding road. The superb horses 
obey their placid drivers. The guns are un- 
yoked and put under shelter, and a young officer 
introduces me to his guns — Canadian guns — certain 
features of which are quite new and, so the experts 
say, very effective. 

73 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

The French-speaking population of the Dominion 
has been no less eager in enlisting for the defence 
of the Empire. Its loyalty is not at all inferior 
to that of the population of English origin. My 
amiable companion does not fail to introduce me 
to his compatriots, his friends from Quebec and 
Montreal. At the moment of our arrival, one of 
the regiments has assembled, in field uniform, 
ready to set out for an unknown destination, doubt- 
less for several days of manoeuvres. 

The colonel is on horseback, and, from his 
saddle, he harangues his men. The wind blows 
us fragments of his sentences ; they are practical 
recommendations, hints concerning hygiene, and 
the speech ends with a few words on the duties 
of patriotism. 

A few officers have joined us. 

" Please tell your friends in France that we 
are eager to cross to the other side of the water 
in order to join in the struggle against the enemy. 
It will be a great happiness to us to be among 
Frenchmen, and, as you see, we shall not need 
interpreters ! There are even a considerable num- 
ber of my men who do not speak a word of English. 
But excuse me, we must go. These gentlemen 
are going to show you our quarters." 

74 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

A few minutes later, battalions and companies 
file past us, with vigorous and rhythmic step. 
These volunteers, in the very prime of life, are as 
good recruits as any in the countries which have 
conscription. They have been training for nearly 
a year ; they are, to say the least, as competent 
and practised as our own regiments after an equal 
lapse of time. And it must be remembered, more- 
over, that they have enlisted in order to fight, and 
they show the greatest eagerness to master the 
profession of arms in the shortest possible time, 
so that they may be sent against the Boches 
without delay. 

After the departure of the regiment, we con- 
tinue our investigations. Without attempting a 
detailed description, it will suffice to say that 
these camps are organised in a remarkable, one 
might say a perfect, fashion. When everything 
has to be created from the beginning, it is easy 
to aim at perfection. 



75 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

IX 

A Nursery for Heroes 

"P^RANCE, with good reason, is proud of her 
military schools. The annals of the school 
at St. Cyr are a collection of glorious pages, the 
foundation of a tradition of honour which has 
been jealously maintained. The Saint-Cyriens of 
1914 set out for the battlefield as though for a 
fete, fresh from the barber, wearing their plumed 
shakos and white gloves. 

Like every noble nation, England also incul- 
cates in her future officers those time-honoured 
traditions of courage and honour which win esteem 
and respect, even from enemies. At Sandhurst, 
not far from the camp of Aldershot, is the Royal 
Military College, where future officers of the regular 
army acquire the necessary training for commissions 
in the infantry and cavalry. 

In peace time, Sandhurst had to provide officers 
for an army of three hundred thousand men. At 
the present moment, the British Army numbers 
more than ten times this figure ; therefore, the 
effective force of the military college has been con- 

76 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

siderably augmented. Before the war, it comprised 
three hundred and sixty cadets, divided into six 
companies, under the command of thirty officers, 
drill masters and professors. Among the former 
cadets of Sandhurst is included the young King of 
Spain. At the present day, the college comprises 
ten companies, and the effective force of each of 
them has been considerably augmented. 

The Royal Military College was founded on 
the eve of the Napoleonic wars by Colonel John 
Gaspard le Marchand, who was a native of Guern- 
sey. After a rather stormy opening period, the 
establishment received its Royal Warrant, and was 
given a definite constitution, in 1802, under the 
superintendence of a Frenchman, General Francis 
Jarry, who had fought in the Seven Years' War, 
and had been claimed by Frederick the Great as 
one of his pupils, and entrusted by him with the 
direction of the military school at Berlin. 

At first the Cadets' College numbered sixteen 
pupils, and the Staff College thirty-four commis- 
sioned officers, whose technical education had to 
be perfected with a view to their admission to the 
staff. But soon after, England was compelled 
to send considerable armies to the Continent. 
Therefore, the effective force of the college was 

77 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

increased ; it comprised four hundred cadets in 
1803, and six hundred in 1806. Equipped with 
the theoretical knowledge which they acquired in 
the course of their studies, the young officers 
proceeded forthwith to complete their training on 
the battlefields, where Wellington soon had at his 
disposal a young and experienced corps of officers, 
who proved themselves formidable adversaries of 
Napoleon's veterans. 

More than a century later, we are witnesses of 
the same spectacle. The working classes made a 
splendid response to Lord Kitchener's appeal, and 
their patriotic ardour has been justly extolled. 
But some praise should also be reserved for the 
wealthy and aristocratic classes, whose sons have 
been the first to offer themselves for the defence 
of the Old Country. 

The pupils of the Royal Military College are 
recruited from among the youth of the famous 
public schools — the traditional nurseries of the 
English gentleman. At the present moment, these 
young men, whose ages vary from seventeen to 
twenty-three years, only spend five months at the 
Military College, after which they join a regiment, 
undergoing a term of probation of a few months 
before they are sent to the front. For more than 

78 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

a year, the college has been sending thus, every 
month, a hundred soldiers to the regular army, 
which makes a total of more than ten thousand 
young sub-lieutenants. 

From the general at the head of the school 
and the colonel who assists him, the military pro- 
fessors have all served in the present war, and some 
have hardly recovered from the wounds which 
they received. The companies, who were digging 
trenches on a moor covered with heather and 
gorse, in a stony soil full of water, on a cold foggy 
morning, were working under the direction of cap- 
tains who have spent long weeks in the trenches in 
France. Five months is a very short time for a 
training which formerly occupied eighteen months, 
but it has been made to suffice. The courses 
which were not essential have been curtailed, 
but the instruction in horsemanship, the night- 
shooting, the entire practical training for war as 
it is conducted at present are adequately developed. 
British commonsense has presided to very good 
purpose over the adaptation of this organisation 
to actual circumstances ; for instance, a civilian 
professor attached to the school delivered lectures 
to the cadets of each company in turn on the 
causes, the consequences, the developments and the 

79 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

extent of the war which the Allies are sustaining 
against the predatory Empires. Is it not an ex- 
cellent idea to inculcate in these young men a 
few general ideas concerning the formidable con- 
flict in which the destinies of civilisation are at 
stake ? With their whole day taken up by the 
thorough training to which they are subjected, 
they lack time for reading and for keeping them- 
selves in touch with the political, economic and 
even philosophic problems which confront the 
nations. I listened to one of these lectures, and I 
admired the simple and clear exposition, the in- 
genious and lucid reflections, the penetrating and 
sagacious judgments of the eminent speaker. From 
my seat on one of the front benches, I turned round, 
curious to see what sort of a reception these young 
athletes would accord to the lecture, and I was 
pleased to observe that the audience was listening 
with absorbed attention ; all these serious faces 
bore witness to the interest excited by the ideas 
which were being suggested to them and enlarged 
upon in the tone of an intimate and singularly en- 
thralling conversation. 

There can be no doubt that all this ardent 
young manhood brings to the performance of the 
day's tasks the most hearty goodwill. Each one 

80 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

of them knows that he is there for the shortest 
possible period, and that it is a question of making 
the very most of the time. Whether they are 
the heirs of the great names of the nobility, or the 
sons of respectable middle-class families, these 
cadets know that the service of their country is 
calling them, and that their place is already 
marked out in the ranks — in the front rank. 

Fresh from the college, full of a newly-acquired 
knowledge, of which they will be as proud as they 
are of their physical energy, they will go out to 
command men who will often be considerably their 
seniors. In spite of the difference in age, these 
private soldiers and non-commissioned officers — 
civilians of yesterday, men of every social con- 
dition, of every trade and profession — will bow 
to the authority of these young men with a perfect 
good nature. Better still, with the deference 
required by military discipline, they will combine 
the kind of affection which an elder brother who 
is rather behind the times feels for a younger 
brother to whose knowledge and competence he 
submits, while at the same time he protects him 
from danger. This sentiment is widespread in 
the regiments at the front, and when one of these 
young officers is wounded or killed the men set 

81 f 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

their teeth and their anger rises as they force the 
enemy to atone for the blood of their " little 
brother." 

The voluntary armies of free England will not 
lack brave and experienced officers. They will 
have aviators, guns, munitions, all the weapons, 
old and new, which modern war requires. On the 
seas the British fleet is supreme. On the Con- 
tinent France is stronger than ever. The power 
of the Allies is increasing, while the enemy is con- 
suming the forces which were employed at their 
maximum at the very outset. 

We await with confidence the issue, of which we 
have every reason to be sure. 



82 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

X 

England and Munitions 

" /^UNS ! Munitions ! " The same cry goes up 
from all the Allies. We shall see how 
England responded to it. 

On the outbreak of the War, the factories 
for arms and munitions were taken over by the 
naval authorities, who hoped to come into immediate 
conflict with the German squadrons and to reduce 
them very considerably. But as the hostilities 
developed, and the three hundred thousand soldiers 
at England's disposal increased to double, triple, 
ten times their number, the problem presented 
itself how to furnish these armies with rifles, 
machine guns, artillery and munitions of all de- 
scriptions. This was the task of Mr. Lloyd George, 
who, starting from the embryo of an organisation, 
has now secured under the control of his department 
more than four thousand factories working ex- 
clusively for the War. 

The whole country has been divided into 
districts — and Ireland has not been excepted — 
each under the direction of a local committee, 

83 F 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

which is in direct relation with the central adminis- 
tration. These local committees organise the in- 
dustrial manufactures and enterprises for the needs 
of the State ; they have very extensive powers, 
which they exercise with the greatest energy. As 
a result of their labours, the industrial resources 
of each district are utilised in such a manner as 
to produce the maximum result. 

The powers of the Minister were defined in the 
Munitions Act, which was rapidly passed through 
the Commons at the time of the creation of the 
department ; and Mr. Lloyd George has given 
repeated proof that he knows how to make use 
of his prerogative. He is assisted by some re- 
markably competent collaborators, a whole phalanx 
of civil engineers, who have been transformed 
into officers of the artillery or the engineers, and 
who do not grudge either their knowledge or their 
goodwill. 

It is not without certain formalities that per- 
mission is obtained to visit the industrial centres 
where arms and munitions are manufactured. 
Having been invited by Mr. Lloyd George to con- 
vince myself that England is now in a fair way 
to compete with le Creusot and our great military 
establishments, not including the thousands of 

84 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

requisitioned factories, I commenced my tour with 
Birmingham. 

My reception there soon became cordial — yet 
another proof that English coldness is one of those 
fables of which very little will survive after the 
War. 

The first factory that I visited was composed 
of old buildings where munitions had always been 
manufactured, and of new buildings, larger than 
the old and in process of constant extension. In the 
workshops in which bullets are manufactured, the 
production in one month rose from eleven millions 
to twenty millions a week. The work is continued 
without interruption. The shifts, composed of one 
thousand five hundred men and two thousand 
women, succeed each other day and night in front 
of the machines, which never rest save for the few 
moments required for the rapid repair of a part. 
The manipulation of these machines may be safely 
entrusted to women, who adapt themselves to this 
routine work very readily ; a few days of appren- 
ticeship is all that they need, and, when once they 
have mastered it, they can continue for several 
hours in succession to make the same rapid move- 
ment required to maintain the even working of the 
machine, with no other anxiety than to increase 

85 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

their speed, so as to produce to-day a higher 
number than the day before. 

Everywhere there are displayed little flags with 
the colours of the Allies, fluttered by the vibration 
of the machines and the current of air generated 
by the transmission belts. Near the windows, 
on the ledge of the partitions, there are plants, 
flowers — slightly anaemic, perhaps, in their some- 
what narrow pots. And there is a strange contrast 
in the anxiety of these women to have a few 
flowers in the midst of this hellish work at which 
they are toiling with so much courage and 
enthusiasm. 

In the afternoon I visit an even worse inferno. 
The sky is obscured, the town is shrouded in 
smoke ; in the offices of the draughtsmen, where 
I am shown the various kinds of fuses and 
other contrivances which are being manufactured 
here, the light falls from the ceiling through 
large opalescent shades which subdue the hard 
brilliance of the electric lamps. In the endless 
workshops, in the network of transmission 
belts and shafts, the lights are like little stars 
seen through the haze above the three thousand 
machines, the motion of which produces a deafening 
hum. 

86 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

Further on is the foundry. In strange-looking 
crucibles, almost on a level with the ground, a 
silvery substance is seething : it is melted 
aluminium. The men fetch small quantities, 
taking it out with a sort of ladle with a long 
handle, from which they pour it into moulds, 
where it takes the form of a disc. These discs 
will become part of the fuses of the millions of 
shells which will be sent to Russia. 

Under one hammer after another the little 
disc is curved and pointed ; it is shaped and 
marked and tested ; and it will ultimately form the 
cap of a shell which will do its work of destruction 
in the ranks of the Germans. . . . 

It is a veritable inferno, this gigantic factory — 
an inferno in which the damned souls of the Boches 
are tortured in anticipation. 

I had thought yesterday in front of those little 
crucibles, in which the aluminium for the shell 
fuses was being melted, that I had been vouch- 
safed a vision of inferno, but they were trifles 
compared with what I have seen to-day. 

From the town of iron I proceeded to the town 
of steel, and I saw some of the most remarkable 
machines in the world for the manufacture of 
guns and their carriages. In all the industrial 

8 7 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

towns of the Midlands, there is truly no other 
work save that connected with War. One firm 
which manufactured exclusively rails for tramways 
and railways has introduced machines which turn 
out shells of all sizes. Another firm which built 
locomotives manufactures gun-carriages and am- 
munition waggons, and its workshops have been 
extended to double their size. One of these enor- 
mous establishments was bounded on one side by 
the town and on the other by a river, beyond which 
the fields stretched to the foot of the hills. In 
a very short time the engineers threw bridges 
across the barge-laden stream, and immense sheds 
were erected, in which were installed machines 
which are now working day and night. It is easy 
to talk of installing machines, but who realises 
the enormous labour which it involves ? It is 
not only a matter of building the workshops, but 
of installing the motive power, of manufacturing 
the special machines which are required for the 
production of engines of war, of collecting the 
workers and of training them. It is not a question 
of little ready-made motors, but of generators 
capable of working gigantic steam-hammers, scores 
of heavy lathes and thousands of machines of 
every description. An electric furnace capable of 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

casting a steel ingot weighing from twenty to 
thirty tons cannot be set up in a day. In order 
to give some idea of the speed with which this 
labour has been accomplished, it will suffice to 
give one example out of many. A great industrial 
establishment commenced, on the 23rd of October, 
1914, the construction of a factory 1,300 feet 
long by 500 feet wide and on the first day of 
the following January the machines were working. 

The area covered by these factories varies 
from about seventy-five to two hundred acres, 
and they extend in every direction where 
ground is available, on which there spring up 
immediately immense iron sheds where hundreds 
of thousands of workmen are employed upon 
the terrible engines of war. Between these vast 
structures, avenues are contrived for the accommo- 
dation of the railways. The locomotives draw 
trucks loaded with mineral, coal or cases of shells. 
Along the river and the canal, barges are being 
unloaded with feverish haste. One has to be con- 
stantly on one's guard against enormous motor- 
lorries, or heavy steam-waggons to which a truck 
is always attached. 

These metallurgic establishments afford an ex- 
ample of the numerous transformations which the 

89 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

raw material undergoes before it becomes a gun 
or a shell. From the blast furnace in which the 
mineral is treated, we pass a whole series of forges, 
steam-hammers, and rolling mills, till we arrive at 
the machine tools, where the last touches are given 
to the more delicate products. For instance, the 
machine for feeding the furnaces in which some 
melted metal is seething is well worth seeing. It is 
like a sort of enormous tortoise, planted on wheels, 
which are almost rollers. Seen at rest, it is awk- 
ward and heavy, but as soon as it begins to move 
it exhibits an amazing activity. With a sort of 
gigantic proboscis, like an elephant's trunk, it 
seizes the troughs filled with metal, protrudes so 
as to push them inside the oven, and empties them 
with incredible precision and rapidity. Elsewhere, 
an enormous crane lifts out from a great vertical 
furnace, ninety feet high, a white-hot cylinder more 
than a yard in diameter, and plunges it into a bath 
of oil, which is let into the ground to a depth equal 
to the height of the oven. Further on, I am obliged 
to put on blue spectacles. It is the foundry, and 
all at once a dazzling cascade is poured into a 
fireproof ladle, which emits a fantastic sheaf of 
sparks. The ladle travels along, suspended from a 
crane, until it arrives above the moulds in which 

90 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

the melted substance will take its first shape. 
Each one of these bars of steel, whether forged 
or cast, can be converted, according to its dimen- 
sions, into a dainty little shell for anti-aircraft 
guns or a sixteen inch projectile. 

After walking for a few hours through the 
factories, one feels overpowered by the force of 
these machines. A block of white-hot metal is 
placed on an anvil. It is a huge mass, and it 
gives out an insupportable heat. Above the anvil 
is a press, the movable part of which descends 
slowly, hangs for a few seconds above the block, 
and then, with an irresistible force, descends 
upon the glowing mass and compresses it ; then 
this species of vice looses its hold, opens and re- 
ascends ; another machine lifts up the long cylinder 
which has been rendered malleable by the heat, 
drives it forward and turns it about like a straw. 
The press descends again and twenty times more 
until the end of the cylinder is reached. At 
each operation a cry of admiration escapes us, 
and we are conscious of our own weakness and 
insignificance in the face of this prodigious force. 
The ten thousand workmen who are toiling there 
are ants struggling with burdens beyond their 
strength, but machines are docile ; they are made 

9i 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

by man, and they are subject to him, no matter 
how gigantic he makes them. 

The rate of production is so great that there 
is no room anywhere in the bays or between the 
machines ; everywhere the products are piled up ; 
here are shells of all sizes, from 18 lbs. to 1,800 lbs., 
the latter nearly two yards high ; there are the 
various pieces which make up the field guns, the 
short howitzers or the innumerable naval guns. 

Outside, there is the same accumulation. I 
spoke just now of avenues, but the wide spaces 
which separate the buildings have neither trees 
nor macadamised pavements. You tramp through 
a sticky black mud, to which no one pays any 
attention, and which is fed by constant showers. 
The only occupation here is that of productive 
labour ; no one has time to look at the ground and 
pick his steps. 

It would be interesting to give the exact 
figures of the production of these establishments, 
but that would be " information useful to the 
enemy," and it will not be till the War is over and 
the Germans vanquished that we shall know the 
exact extent of the English effort. We will, there- 
fore, preserve silence on this point, since the vigilant 
censor would implacably strike through our figures 

92 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

if we were so rash as to publish them. We may, 
however, be permitted to say that the manufacture 
of munitions and of material of war is adequate 
to all the necessities of the situation, and that it 
is increasing at such a rate that the superiority 
of the Allies henceforth exceeds the superiority 
enjoyed by the Germans at the outbreak of the War. 

After the amazing spectacle of the vast factories 
where cartridges are being manufactured by tens 
of millions and shells by tens of thousands, we shall 
see how no less important resources have been 
utilised. The factories of the great metallurgic 
centres have at their disposal the necessary material 
and the necessary workers for performing all the 
operations by means of which a shapeless mass of 
metal is transformed into a shell or a gun of 
the largest dimensions. It is no less interesting 
to see what has been accomplished in towns which 
had never before produced the smallest projectile 
for the most inoffensive carbine. 

Before the War, the manufacturers of Leeds 
produced all kinds of gas-fittings, miners' lamps, 
textile machines, printing presses, and machine 
tools. The town contains a few large factories, 
but most of the workshops contain no more than 
five to ten machines. The Ministry of Munitions 

93 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

has organised the work which these workshops are 
capable of performing, and this organisation is as 
ingenious as it is effective. 

It must be said at once that Mr. Lloyd George 
met with the most generous and eager co-operation 
from the manufacturers of the district. They 
have formed a group ; the members of the local 
committee tender for orders and divide up the 
execution of them according to the machines and 
the workers which they have respectively at their 
disposal. It is only fair to the workers to mention 
that they supported the efforts of their employers 
with the utmost good will. The smaller factories 
assist the bigger ones. A shell is made up of several 
parts which may be manufactured separately and 
then put together. 

At Leeds, there is a National Shell Factory. 
It was established and equipped solely by local 
initiative. On the 18th of June, 1915, the site 
was occupied by a carriage-builder's shed. Four 
months later, twelve hundred workmen were work- 
ing there day and night at shells of one particular 
size. Some ground was available by the side, 
and new workshops, which will employ one thousand 
five hundred workmen, are being constructed with 
unceasing activity. While the windows are being 

94 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

fitted, the machines are already in process of 
instalment — and these machines were not to be 
had ready made ; it was necessary to design and 
construct them from the very beginning. It has 
been the manufacturers — who are all engineers — 
who have planned and directed this construction 
on behalf of the Ministry of Munitions, whilst their 
own establishments are controlled by the same 
Ministry and work only for the purposes of the 
War. 

There is no lack of workers. A few hours' 
apprenticeship are sufficient for the manipulation 
of a lathe or an automatic machine. People 
belonging to all kinds of professions — even a clergy- 
man — come to do their eight hours' shift with their 
gang. At the beginning the production was less 
than it should have been by twenty-five per 
cent. ; this has now fallen to seven per cent., and 
the directors are confident of bringing it down 
to three per cent-. 

The manufacturers of machine-tools at Leeds 
threw up their contracts, and are working solely 
at the manufacture of the machines destined either 
for making munitions in the new factories which 
are springing up everywhere or for replacing 
machines which can no longer be utilised in the 

95 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

existing factories. One of these factories employs 
five thousand hands, who are working day and 
night at the construction of amazingly-ingenious 
machine-tools, by means of which it is possible 
to manufacture with greater speed and efficiency 
all those engines of destruction which will win us 
the victory. In the new buildings attached to this 
factory two thousand women are manufacturing, 
by the aid of these new machines, bullets for the 
English rifles and for our Lebel. Additional build- 
ings have just been completed, and four thousand 
women-workers have been engaged. 

In the district of Leeds alone there are more 
than fifty establishments of this nature, and it is 
the same from one end of the country to the other. 

At a little distance from Leeds, at the bottom 
of a narrow valley beyond which stretch the 
Yorkshire moors, a little industrial colony has 
settled on the edge of a navigable river. There, 
weaving machines and the plant for spinning 
are manufactured. There were some unoccupied 
buildings. A local committee was formed; ma- 
chines for making shells were rapidly constructed, 
equipped and installed in these empty buildings, 
a few men past military age and a few hundred 
women were engaged, and the national factory 

96 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

is now in full working order. Soon it will have 
doubled its production, thanks to the enlarge- 
ment of the building. The factory is managed 
by the local manufacturers. They are four in 
number, and they meet in a very unpretentious 
office. One of them is a type only to be found in 
this part of Yorkshire : solidly built, with broad 
shoulders, a firm chin, and the peculiar local 
accent, which gives even more energy to his decisive 
speech. He explains to me how they created this 
factory in a few weeks, and how they not only 
keep it going but are constantly enlarging it and 
increasing the production. He tells us the terms 
of the contracts made with the State like a man of 
business. "It is only we who have no salaries," 
observes one of his colleagues. " Bah ! " he re- 
torts immediately, " then we can double them every 
week ! " And he bursts into a hearty laugh. 
" What do you want us to do ? " they asked 
Lloyd George. " Supply munitions and arms for 
our heroes," replied the Minister. "All right! 
They shall have them," said these men of action, 
and, at the rate they are going, they will produce 
an avalanche of iron and steel to be hurled at the 
invaders of Belgium and Serbia. 

In the manufacturing centres of England, the 
97 G 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

factories and the residential buildings are so close 
together that they evidently only exist the one 
for the other. In the centre of the agglomeration, 
as well as on its outer circumference, the tall 
chimneys rise up and spread a black veil of smoke 
over the neighbourhood. The atmosphere is a 
compound of smoke and rain, which is not parti- 
cularly cheerful. There are scarcely any loiterers 
to be seen in the streets. Every one is going from 
his home to his work or from his work to his home, 
with a hasty step and without raising his eyes to 
the veil of fog which hides the heavens. 

However, this morning, at Newcastle, the sun 
paid us the extraordinary compliment of revealing 
its presence in a cloudless sky, but its rays do not 
pierce the coating of fog which already enshrouds 
the town and its disc is shorn of its beams. How- 
ever, there is no need to pity us. Is it not better 
than floundering through the drizzling rain ? 

The Armstrong factories extend over a con- 
siderable area on the left bank of the river. For 
the last five months they have been continually 
enlarged. One after the other new workshops 
have been toiling to satisfy the requirements of the 
Admiralty and of the War Office, under the stimu- 
lating control of the Ministry of Munitions. Already, 

9 8 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

twenty thousand workmen are working here at 
seventy-seven different types of shells, and are 
turning out thirty-six field-guns in a week, that is 
to say, nine complete batteries, with limbers, 
carriages and all accessories. We must add to 
these eloquent figures the heavy guns corresponding 
to our " 105 " and "155/' the quick-firing guns 
for the Navy, the tubes for firing torpedoes, 
the enormous guns which are mounted in the 
turrets, and all the innumerable implements and 
projectiles which, when they have once been tested 
and approved, are despatched without delay to the 
various fronts — the front in Flanders, the Russian 
front, the fronts in the Balkans, in Egypt, in the 
Persian Gulf — wherever German madness has forced 
men to massacre one another. 

For whole hours, in one workshop after the 
other, the melted or forged steel undergoes its 
multiple transformations : it becomes the little 
shell for the anti-aircraft guns — a pretty bauble — 
or the enormous projectile of the twelve-inch gun, 
which it takes three hundred hours to make. 
There, an incandescent bar, weighing seventy tons, 
is undergoing a pressure of ten thousand tons, and is 
being irresistibly compressed ; here, all this infernal 
toil has resulted in a spruce, polished, glittering 

99 G 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

gun, which the busy cranes lift up as though it 
were a straw and convey it, above our heads, to 
the trucks in which it starts on its journey to the 
fighting line, where, with so many others, it will 
hurl death and devastation on the hated enemy. 

From the East coast we proceed straight to the 
West coast — to Glasgow — and pass from one marvel 
to a greater marvel. It seems here as if the whole 
region has been transformed into an immense 
arsenal. 

The town contains an establishment which, 
together with the Vickers and Armstrong estab- 
lishments, is one of the largest armament works 
in the United Kingdom ; here, almost everything 
required for naval or field artillery is manufactured, 
from the lightest machine gun to the most enormous 
naval guns, with all their accessories and pro- 
jectiles. After it has passed through the blast 
furnace, the metal undergoes all the processes 
which transform it into steel and fashion it into 
guns or shells. We pass from workshop to work- 
shop, inspecting these titanic operations. Incan- 
descent masses of from fifty to sixty tons pass from 
the furnaces under the steam-hammers ; a cascade 
of molten metal falls into the ladle, from which it 
will be poured into the moulds. Enormous tubes 

100 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

are taken out of the vertical furnaces to be plunged 
into the reservoirs of oil, which will give the 
metal its temper. 

The head of the establishment, Sir William 
Beardmore, seems cheerful and satisfied, as he con- 
templates the prodigious activity of his workshops. 
" From this little shed/' he explains — for this work- 
shop is not one of the largest — " we despatch ten 
completely finished field-guns every week. Here is 
a lathe by means of which one hundred and fifty 
miles of flat metal wire can be wound round the 
barrel of a twelve-inch gun. Before the war, 
we manufactured shells, but this kind of work has 
been developed now with the utmost energy, and 
we are fitting up new workshops as fast as we are 
able to obtain the machines. We were among the 
first to employ women, and we are very satisfied 
with them." 

We enter a clean, well-lighted workshop in which 

we perceive a network of innumerable belts. 

" Here," said Sir William, " three hundred and 

twenty women are engaged in the manufacture of 

our field-gun shells, and they produce as many as 

ten thousand a week. 

For this kind of work female labour is most 

satisfactory. A woman learns very quickly to 

IOI 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

control and feed her machine with the least pos- 
sible waste of time. She likes this routine work, 
repeated incessantly from morning to evening and 
from day to day. She is more persevering in it 
than a man, and produces better results. " When 
a workman has spent a week or two manipulating 
a lathe for boring cylinders or piercing fuses/' 
remarks an engineer, " he comes to ask for his 
work to be changed or he goes on strike ; on the 
contrary, if a woman is told that she is to be given 
some other work, she cries and begs that she shall 
not be changed." 

These women stay by their machines, grave and 
attentive, performing rapidly, but without any ap- 
pearance of haste, the exact movements required. 
I question a few of them. " What were you doing 
before the War ? " One was a dressmaker ; another 
was employed in a spinning-mill ; another was 
serving in a tea-shop ; another was doing nothing, 
helping her mother in the house. " Are you satis- 
fied with your work ? " The answer is always the 
same, with the same smile and the same proud 
lift of the head : " Oh, yes ; very satisfied ! " 
They are all dressed in big aprons and little khaki 
caps, which hold in any stray curls which might 
be caught in the belts or on the pulleys. There 

102 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

are no ear-rings or finger-rings which might 
catch in the complicated machinery with fatal 
results. 

They work in alternate day and night shifts 
of a fortnight's duration. " Which do you prefer 
— the day or the night work ? " Generally they 
prefer the day work, but some — almost all mothers 
of families — prefer the night shift. " Why ? " 
The reply is always the same : " You earn more 
money " — and doubtless they also have more time 
to give to their children. 

Each is engaged on one of the numerous parts 
which make up a shell, or else simply cutting the 
groove in which will be fitted the copper driving 
band ; and each of these tasks takes more or less 
time. I ask them again : " How many do you make 
in a day ? " "I made one hundred and forty-four 
yesterday, but the week before I made as many as 
one hundred and sixty-two in ten hours." 

The figures vary according to the occupation, 
but what does not vary is the pleasure with which 
these women tell me the maximum they have been 
able to attain, and one feels that their chief am- 
bition is to attain it again and exceed it ; not 
only is there emulation between them, but each 
tries to beat her own record. 

103 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

Messrs. G. and J. Weir, of Cathcart, also had 
recourse to female labour. These two brothers 
represent just the kind of intelligent and practical 
collaborators which Mr. Lloyd George has succeeded 
in finding. One of them is in khaki ; on the trim- 
ming of his cuff and on his shoulder-piece a crown 
is embroidered, indicating his rank of Major, and 
on his breast are the two white wings of the 
Flying Corps. He has recently returned to assist 
his brother in the management of their immense 
establishment, but this aviator-gunner tells me 
that he misses those batteries of his which are 
attacking the Boches near La Bassee. He is very 
modest, with an extraordinarily gentle, almost 
timid, expression ; he gives me the explanations 
in a very few words ; then he is silent and resumes 
his air of meditation. But his mind is not absent ; 
he sees everything, answers everything, without 
an unnecessary step or gesture, without an idle 
word. A few months ago, he flew from England 
to Bethune, in a storm. When they started off, 
another airman who accompanied him was flung 
to the ground ; he was more fortunate, and he 
accomplished the crossing without misadventure, 
but not without the painful conviction that he 
was making his last journey. He described this 

104 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

fear, which never left him for hours, with a quiet 
simplicity. 

The two brothers are clean-shaven, and it is 
difficult to judge their age. In any case, they look 
very young. The civilian has not the apparent 
nonchalance of the officer. He is precise, clear, 
exact, like one of those fine machines which are 
working in his factory. The establishment of the 
brothers Weir is the most modern which I have 
visited up to the present. The workshops are 
admirably light and airy and surprisingly clean. 
Before the war they only manufactured accessory 
machines, particularly steam pumps for ships of all 
descriptions. Now contracts of this kind are only 
taken when they are destined for the navy ; the avail- 
able workshops were utilised only for the materials of 
war, and new workshops have been constructed or 
are in process of construction. These workshops are 
of such dimensions that each of them might in itself 
constitute an arms factory. Instead of numbering 
them, Messrs. Weir have given them such names as : 
Flanders, Argonne, Marne, La Bassee, Liege, Ypres, 
Albert, Mons, Bethune, Lille, Anzac. The contract 
for the construction of the "Flanders" factory 
was passed on August 15th, 1915. On the 15th of 
October it was in working order— that is to say, 

105 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

the whole of the structure was erected, the iron 
framework was set up, the walls built, the windows 
put in, the machines designed, manufactured, 
despatched, erected, the motive power, lighting 
arrangements, etc., installed — in two months ! The 
workers were collected and trained, and a few tens 
of millions of shells have already been produced 
and despatched. 

The well-lighted and well-kept Weir establish- 
ments set themselves to construct aeroplanes. The 
production of these is increasing daily, and it will 
reach fantastic proportions when the factories 
and workshops in process of construction are 
actually at work. The energy of the brothers Weir, 
which gives such a powerful impetus to this for- 
midable enterprise, is also devoted to the rapid 
completion of a factory for the filling of the 
shells manufactured in the district. This new 
establishment is naturally situated at a distance 
from the rest. The order for its construction was 
given on the 20th of September, 1915. Only 
female workers are employed, and there are three 
shifts, which relieve one another every eight hours. 

Further on, at the foot of the snow-capped 
mountains, a new branch of the Armstrong firm 
has been installed since January in the spacious 

106 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

premises of a quondam motor-car factory. Here, 
three thousand five hundred men and women 
workers produce every week thousands of shells of 
all sizes, and new machines are continually being 
installed. The engineer who superintends this 
immense hive has organised it so as to reduce to 
a minimum the movements and manipulations 
which impede production. The machines have 
been wonderfully improved, and have reached a 
marvellous degree of automatism. Between the 
vast workshops, the locomotives draw the trucks 
which have brought the raw material, and which 
take away cases full of finished projectiles. 

In the national factories created by Mr. Lloyd 
George, as well as in the hundreds of controlled 
establishments, the material of war, and the pro- 
jectiles which will provide those continually more 
effective curtains of fire against which the attacks 
of the enemy are broken, are being manufactured 
with increasing energy. We are no longer in 
danger of lacking guns or munitions ; the English 
production has attained such proportions that it 
will ensure for the Allies a superiority so over- 
whelming, let us hope, that the enemy will be 
trapped in their trenches and enveloped in a torment 
of fire. 

107 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

If, after expressing cordial thanks to the Minister 
who has allowed this reassuring visit, I might 
be permitted to utter a word of advice or rather a 
wish, I would beg Mr. Lloyd George to send a 
similar invitation to the neutrals who are still 
hesitating. They would carry away with them an 
impression which would perhaps decide them to 
declare for the Allies. 



108 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

XI 

Under the Dome of St. Paul's 

CINCE the disc of a sun shorn of its beams first 
became visible through the fog, the precincts 
of St. Paul's Cathedral have been thronged with 
a crowd who are waiting for the opening of the 
gates. Thousands will not be able to gain admission 
to the building, and those whose patience will be 
rewarded will have to stand in the aisles, for the 
nave and the transept are reserved for those who 
have cards of invitation, but all cherish a hope that 
perhaps, by pressing very close together, there 
will be room for everybody. Some poverty- 
stricken women are offering, in hoarse voices ; a 
sort of portrait of Miss Cavell, with the programme 
of the ceremony to be held in memory of the 
victim of the Germans, for the sum of one penny. 

As in the case of all great assemblies of this 
nature in England, the crowd is admitted two hours 
before the ceremony begins. Those who succeed 
in finding a place are better there than outside, and 
the others can return two hours earlier to their 
homes or their occupations, unless they prefer to 

109 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

wait for the arrival of the celebrities who alight 
at the side entrances from luxurious motor-cars. 
An hour after the public has been admitted, an 
orchestra — the band of the Guards — plays occa- 
sional music while those who have been invited 
are gradually finding their places ; no one risks 
being late. 

I make my way to the benches which have been 
reserved for the Press in an excellent position. 
My English colleagues do not arrive until much 
later, and their delay leaves me a choice, of 
which I take advantage. The vergers are dressed 
in black cassocks, with long sleeves hanging from 
the elbows and growing narrower towards the 
ground and trimmed with great black pompons — - 
like pierrots in mourning. One of them is very 
busy. He has a thin ascetic face, clean-shaven, 
and a mouth without lips, as if it had been made 
by a clean stroke with a lancet. Respectable 
stewards in ordinary attire each have charge of a 
series of numbered benches ; they are distinguished 
by a heavy bronze badge suspended from a broad 
crimson ribbon ; without noise or haste, they show 
to their places a quiet and docile congregation, 
who make their way to the exact seat indicated. 
The sacristans in their surplices pass to and fro 

no 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

with long strides ; to the questions of the vergers 
and the stewards they reply quietly, in a few 
words, as is becoming in a temple. Whole rows 
are occupied by hospital nurses, who arrive ten and 
twelve at a time. The celebrities among the 
congregation have arrived punctually : members 
of parliament, ministers, high officials, dignitaries 
of the Church, the representative of the Lord 
Mayor, in great pomp, preceded by stout mace- 
bearers and halberdiers, who are conducted by the 
thin vergers with their slender silver wands. 

An obliging sacristan hands us a list of the 
celebrities whose presence is assured, and from time 
to time he comes to add some verbal information. 
He even proceeds to cross out a name, that of the 
labour representative and he insists on verifying 
that this erasure has actually been made. The 
Prime Minister, the Queen-Mother Alexandra, the 
representatives of the King and the Queen have 
taken their places. The dignitaries and the clergy 
take their places in the choir. The memorial 
service begins. At the same time, the enormous 
dome which towers above us and which had seemed 
to be filled with an impenetrable fog grows clearer. 
The sun enters in long rays of yellowish light, 
which give lustre to the gilding of the balustrades 

ni 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

and a greater transparency to the faded stained- 
glass windows. 

From the great organ and the thousands of 
voices of the congregation goes up the stirring 
appeal of the De Profundis, which resounds under 
the majestic vaults of the cathedral. It is no longer 
merely a funeral service ; it is a supplication for a 
martyr, for Nurse Edith Cavell, whom a German 
in braided uniform — we cannot say a man and still 
less an officer — put to death as an executioner 
puts to death a murderer, only that here the exe- 
cutioner is also the murderer. De Profundis . . . 
From one end of the world to the other the revolver 
shot of the armed Prussian has evoked a long cry 
of horror. For against those who treated her 
simple patriotic action as a crime, Miss Cavell had 
no other weapon save a whole life consecrated to 
the relief of the sick and wounded — German 
wounded among them. These hundreds of nurses 
who kneel on the cold stone floor of the cathedral 
and pray for the repose of the immortal soul of the 
victim of the Germans, they too have no other 
weapon. In their simple costume, these women 
represent the great divine pity extended to man in 
the midst of the suffering which his folly has created, 
and it might have been expected that the most 

112 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

brutal savages would have accorded them the sacred 
immunity due to their work of pity and charity. 

The murder of a woman is an abominable crime, 
and, in the case of the courageous nurse who stayed 
behind in an invaded country, it was a premeditated 
murder. The German does premeditate his crimes, 
and Miss Cavell will symbolise all the victims of 
Teutonic ferocity. In Belgium and in France, in 
Poland and in Serbia, hundreds and thousands of 
women have been foully murdered, and hundreds 
and thousands of children have been murdered 
with their mothers. 

The death of Miss Cavell will reveal to the 
English people the true character of the German, 
whose leaders have for generations been cultivating 
in him sentiments of arrogance and brutality. In 
the first months of 1915, in the plains of Flanders, 
English officers said to me : " You Frenchmen hate 
the Germans . . . We have not yet learnt 
that hatred," they added. They will understand 
it now, and they will understand it more and more. 

How should we do other than hate those German 
hordes who, wherever they have passed, have not 
only killed women and young girls, but have in- 
flicted on them the vilest insult and outrage ? 
We hate the German, for he is not only a brute 

113 H 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

and an assassin ; he is also a foul animal which 
sullies and dishonours. Overwhelming and irre- 
futable evidence has been collected of the atrocities 
committed by the invaders, when they believed 
themselves sure of victory. Even now, in the 
blockhouses and the shelters from which the English 
and French troops expelled them a few weeks ago, 
there were found corpses of women and young 
girls. These are the enemies which our armies 
have to fight. 

There are no pro-Germans in France — after all, 
can it be said that there are any in England ? 
For the French soldier, the German has ceased to 
be an honourable adversary, against whom he is 
fighting honourably, and whose hand he can shake 
when he has vanquished him without any sense of 
defilement. For us, the German is a loathsome 
animal, who must be driven for ever from the sacred 
soil of France. He has robbed war of every element 
of nobility and chivalry. He has transformed it 
into a labour of base revenge, of vile envy, a 
cowardly war in which he massacres and destroys 
without reason or excuse. It is barbarism restored 
and eager to enslave the world. 

England has been immune from invasion. She 
has been obliged to wage her battles on the 

114 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

Continent, and so she herself has escaped the horrors 
of war. The enemy has not set foot on her soil, 
burnt her towns and violated defenceless women. 
After the lamentations of the hymns, I should 
have liked to hear the congregation join in a fervent 
psalm of thanksgiving for the immunity which 
they enjoy. The English are fighting for their 
honour, for the defence of their national existence 
and the security of the British Empire, but they 
do not know as we do the passionate wrath and 
bitterness of hate. France rose as one man to 
defend her honour and her life, and, if she is 
fighting now with rage and hatred in her heart, 
it is because she has to revenge towns which have 
been destroyed, and women who have been out- 
raged by a lustful soldiery. 

Hatred would never have entered our hearts 
if our enemies had respected those who are our 
mothers, wives, sisters, daughters. The innumer- 
able outrages to which they have been subjected 
fill us with scorn and execration of an infamous 
and degenerate adversary. On the field of battle 
there is no hatred between man and man, provided 
that the adversaries show equal respect for the 
rules of the conflict and do not strike below the 
belt. 

115 H 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

The Germans have slain Miss Cavell, and a wave 
of wrath has swept over England. From France, 
an immense cry of sorrow has accompanied the 
recollection of all the unfortunate victims of Ger- 
manic ferocity and lust. 

While the drums were beating out Schubert's 
great " Heroic March " or Chopin's " Funeral 
March " with a force which seemed to shake the 
building, I thought of our cathedrals and our 
humble churches in France which the German guns 
select for their target. The good Catholics of 
Rheims, Ypres, Arras and Soissons can no longer 
go to their sanctuaries to address their prayers 
and pour out their sorrows before the God of 
peace in whom they trust. In St. Paul's Cathedral 
we were in safety, secure from cannon and as- 
phyxiating or incendiary projectiles, or, at any 
rate, the day protected us, for at night the German 
airship visits unfortified towns in order to kill their 
sleeping inhabitants and destroy, if possible, their 
precious monuments. 

For if the German is a murderer and a lustful 
brute, he is also a blasphemer and a profaner of 
sacred things. Where is the Christian or the 
honest unbeliever who does not experience a sense 
of nausea when he reads the invocations of the 

116 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

Kaiser to the good old German God ? The man 
who let loose this sanguinary war repeats on every 
occasion : " God is with us." In what burning 
lines Victor Hugo would have told him that God 
will never be with him until the hour of his ruin 
and chastisement. 

The diseased madman who orders the killing 
and violation of women, who causes them to weep 
for their husbands, their sons, their brothers, may 
possibly enjoy playing the role of Anti-Christ, 
after having played so many other roles less suc- 
cessfully with his smile and his mephistophelian 
moustache. But the Church teaches her faithful 
that none can blaspheme without incurring the 
divine wrath. The God to whose glory were 
built those cathedrals and churches which the 
Germans are devastating, and that eternal justice 
which has been so outrageously defied, will hear the 
cry for vengeance of the murdered women and of 
those who are mourning ; and their wrath will 
descend on those who are the enemies of humanity 
and of civilisation. 



117 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

XII 

Sir Robert Borden and France. 

(^ AN AD A has not been content with sending 
a powerful army to aid in the defence of the 
British Empire. This immense country, which is 
twenty times as large as France, with more than 
eight million inhabitants, many of whom are 
French in race and in speech, is contributing to the 
utmost of her resources to the war of defence 
against Germanic barbarism. 

The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, crossed 
over to Europe, accompanied by Major-General 
S. Hughes, the Minister of Militia. In London, he 
worked in collaboration with the Government, and 
— a fact without precedent and big with conse- 
quence — he was present at a meeting of the 
Cabinet. 

Sir Robert Borden spent a week in France, 
where he visited the Canadian contingent. From 
the headquarters of Field-Marshal French, he pro- 
ceeded to General Joffre, and thence to Paris, 
where he conversed with our Ministers and dined 
with the President of the Republic. He inspected 
the four Canadian hospitals which have been estab- 

118 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

lished in France, and near the graves at Boulogne 
and Le Treport, where the Canadians who have 
died for their country have been laid, he reverently 
planted some seeds of the maple-tree, the national 
tree of Canada. 

When I begged the Canadian Prime Minister 
for the honour of an interview, I was not ignorant 
of the enormous demands upon his energy during 
his stay in the metropolis of the Empire; but 
also, as he had visited our French lines, seen 
our soldiers in the trenches and our civilians out- 
side the fighting area, I was anxious to hear his 
impressions. 

" I look upon it as a pleasant duty to express 
here the profound sympathy and the sincere 
admiration which I feel for France. When I visited 
the armies, I was strongly impressed by the re- 
markable efficiency of the military organisation. 
The moral of the troops is excellent. I found them 
full of an enthusiasm, a resolution, a calm and 
courage which was astonishing after a year of such 
a war, if one did not know the heroic qualities of 
the French nation. What struck me also was that 
one spirit animates the whole population. Every- 
where outside the zone of the armies, where heroism 
has become a matter of course, I observed that 

IIQ 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

composure and that calm determination which have 
revealed to foreigners a France — the true France — 
which they did not know before. This week 
which I have just spent with our brave Canadians 
and with the French army I shall count as one 
of the most soul-stirring experiences of my life." 

In the handsome, serious face of the Prime 
Minister, the blue eyes light up with a sudden 
flame, and through the wide bay window looking 
over the dark waters of the river, his glance 
stretches towards the lofty buildings on the Em- 
bankment as far as Westminster Palace, with its 
straight, severe and majestic lines. 

" Yes," he says ; " it is a comforting spectacle 
to see a whole nation in arms. All your young 
men, all your men of mature age, are mobilised for 
war, and yet throughout the country, up to a few 
hundred metres from the line of the trenches, the 
ground has been ploughed, sown, and the harvest 
gathered in by old men, women and children. 
Indeed," says Sir Robert, "it is impossible for me 
to express the intense emotion which I felt when 
I saw the courage, the patience, the seriousness and 
the composure of the French nation. A nation 
with such a spirit can never perish or be enslaved. 

" We are no less proud," he adds, " to think 

120 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

that our great Ally is our near relation. The 
Canadians of British origin have as many Celtic 
and Norman as they have Saxon ancestors, and 
there are several regiments of French-Canadians 
in which one scarcely hears a word of English 
spoken ; the relationship, in their case, is still 
nearer, though the same desire to defend the 
Empire animates all the Canadians, whatever 
their origin. In the course of my visit to France, 
within the range of the German guns, I contem- 
plated the grave and eager faces of ten thousand 
Canadians. Only a few days before I had looked 
into the undaunted eyes of a thousand convalescent 
Canadians. In those faces and in those eyes I read 
one thought only, one single unshakable determina- 
tion — to defend our liberties and our institutions 
and the influence of our Empire in the world." 

I recalled to the Prime Minister that the 
Germans had pictured to themselves quite a different 
attitude on the part of the various countries which 
make up the British Empire : they counted on 
rebellions in India and South Africa ; they hoped 
that Australia and Canada would profit by this 
opportunity to proclaim their autonomy and throw 
off the yoke of the mother country. There was 
an expression of amusement on the face of my 

121 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

illustrious companion, and his piercing eyes shone 
with satisfaction. 

" Oh, yes ! " he said. " The Germans have 
cradled themselves in a good many illusions. 
Their absurd hopes have been disappointed, and 
remember that, from the very first day, the young 
Dominions and Crown Colonies begged for the 
honour of fighting by the side of old England. 
As early as the 6th of August, we assembled our 
troops at the camp of Valcartier — a familiar name 
to French ears — and there I reviewed shortly after 
thirty-five thousand men. 

" There is only one spirit in our country — 
a marvellous spirit of heroism and patience, a spirit 
of absolute consecration to the cause that we have 
at heart. We are not only struggling for the exist- 
ence of the British Empire, but for liberty, justice 
and civilisation. The formidable military auto- 
cracy to which we are opposed, endeavoured to 
create dissension among us by treacherous talk of 
liberty and justice. But we recognised at once 
the common enemy beneath his disguise. How 
should he bring culture, who claims to impose his 
culture by means of the thunder of his cannon ? 
And what liberty can Germany offer, when she is 
politically gagged and enslaved by Prussian 

122 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

militarism ? We owe to the mother country free and 
independent institutions, and we will defend them 
to the last man, to the end of our resources, rather 
than submit to Germanic vassalage and oppression. 
Our fathers fought and spilt their blood for the 
sake of the liberties which we prize, for that ideal 
of individual liberty which England, as the repre- 
sentative of democracy, and France, as the repre- 
sentative of the rights of men, have propagated 
through the world. All these have been brutally 
thrown back into the balance to-day, and it is for 
this reason that we must not and cannot succumb 
in this war." 

The Prime Minister told me of all the immense 
activity which has been displayed not only in 
Canada, but from one end of the British Isles to 
the other. 

Sir Robert Borden is convinced that the Allies 
have taken all the necessary measures, and that 
not an instant has been lost. Nothing ought to 
discourage us he affirms ; the gigantic military 
effort which is being pursued without respite by 
the Allies, with the aid of all the resources of 
science, will give us, in the near future, an irresistible 
superiority over the enemy. 



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BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

XIII 

A Means of Finishing the War 

npHIS means has been suggested by one of the 

most learned men in Europe, who is in no 

sense a soldier. He described it in the course of 

an article in the English Review of September, 

1915. 

An enormous skull, a thin face, a small and 
fragile body, such is Dr. Dillon, who despatched 
his scheme to London from one of the capitals in 
the Balkans. His name is well known in all the 
chancelleries of Europe. In Paris, in Petrograd, 
in Rome, in Stockholm, and — before the war — 
at Constantinople and Berlin, Dr. Dillon had free 
access to the most illustrious personages. His 
learning is philosophic and philologic. This mar- 
vellous little man speaks and writes all the principal 
languages of Europe. 

Profiting by his constant intercourse with those 
neutral States in the Balkans who believe that they 
hold the key of the situation without knowing in 
which lock to put it, Dr. Dillon tells us his con- 
clusions. 

124 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

The present war is endangering the social, 
political, ethical and economic foundations of 
Europe. As long as the neutrals are allowed to 
engage in trade prejudicial to our success, the 
victory will be long in coming and the price of it 
will be ruinous. 

Certainly, we must have confidence, but an 
excessive confidence has its dangers. 

Let us examine the respective situations of the 
two groups of belligerents after twelve months of 
war. On our western front, the enemy is checked 
by a victorious resistance ; on the eastern front, 
his offensive is driving back the Russian armies, 
without breaking them, and, in fact, to borrow a 
metaphor from Prince von Biilow, all these 
formidable efforts on the part of Germany 
are like so many terrific blows inflicted on an 
eiderdown ! Germany is exhausting her strength 
in defending herself against a coalition which her 
own attack has provoked ; she knows herself that 
it is no longer possible for her to conquer, as she 
had hoped, and now she is merely struggling not 
to be defeated. 

But the Allies must defeat her and they intend 
to defeat her, and in order to attain that end no 
means ought to be neglected. Dr. Dillon proposes 

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BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

that the Allies should now mobilise all their economic 
forces for one common effort. Without waiting 
for the end of the war, it is important to form at 
once an economic league, thanks to which we shall 
furnish neutrals with strong motives for reflecting 
on the consequences of their attitude. 

The conduct of certain of them is only a lucra- 
tive speculation on our final defeat. In them we 
must inculcate with the utmost possible energy the 
conviction that it is we who are going to be the 
victors, and then they will cease to behave with the 
arrogance of the ass kicking the sick lion. 

Our military entente ought to be reinforced 
by an economic entente, which would reserve for 
its members the commercial, financial and other 
advantages which, at present, are enjoyed both by 
our best friends and by the most knavish of the 
neutral spectators. 

The League once formed, the Allies would 
apply two customs tariffs to the importation of 
raw or manufactured products : one, a moderate 
one, would be applied to the Allied nations ; the 
other, as high as possible, would be applied to 
everything coming from other States. It would 
then be in the interests of each of the States to join 
the League as soon as possible. 

126 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

This customs entente would, at the present 
time, represent two hundred and seventy-one and 
a half millions of Allies against one hundred and 
forty-three millions of enemies and sixty-five 
millions of neutrals, without allowing for the fact 
that it would certainly gain the support of South 
America, Africa, and half of Asia. Thanks to the 
mastery of the seas, ensured by the naval supremacy 
of England, powerfully supported by the navies of 
France and Italy, all the nations of the globe would 
infallibly be drawn into becoming our privileged 
purveyors. 

The programme of the League would not confine 
itself to putting prohibitive duties on merchandise 
coming from nations who were not members. It 
would be free to impose restrictive measures on 
coasting as well as on long-distance navigation. 

The nations belonging to the League would 
inflict heavy licensing fees on representatives and 
branches of industries or business firms belonging 
to countries outside the entente. 

In the sphere of finance, the banks, following 
the example of Germany, would organise them- 
selves so as to favour commercial and industrial 
enterprises and maintain a very moderate rate 
of exchange and discount in the case of countries 

127 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

belonging to the League who should need the assist- 
ance of our capital to develop their resources. 
It would not be a question of sinking capital in 
investments or of lending it without interest, but of 
a series of transactions profitable to both parties. 

It is only natural and just that we should re- 
serve for our loyal friends the material benefits of 
their sympathy. The others will be reduced to 
short commons, and even to famine, if they have 
to live on the crumbs which fall from the not 
very well-furnished table of the Austro-Turco- 
Germans. We are the masters of the great markets 
of the world, which are threatened by German 
greed, and it would be too foolish if we allowed 
free access to them to those who to-morrow, or at 
any moment, might declare against us. 

This scheme demands an immediate examina- 
tion, otherwise time, which we boast of having as 
our ally, may render impossible its utilisation as 
a factor in the present conflict. It must be sys- 
tematically organised and rigorously applied, or 
it will share the fate of so many other projects 
which have been ruined through indifference, hesi- 
tation or pusillanimity. Time is on the side of those 
who act ; it is imperative to act at once. 



128 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

XIV 

The Efforts of England 

HPHE speech delivered at Bristol, at the Congress 
of the Trades Unions, by Mr. Lloyd George 
was an act of courage. 

It is easier, he said, to face your foes than 
your friends. None the less, the Minister of Muni- 
tions did not hesitate to tell his friends some dis- 
agreeable truths. It must be admitted that the 
working-class organisations, at the outbreak of 
the war, gave proof of an extraordinary blindness. 
When hundreds of thousands of workers were 
enlisting to defend the Empire, the leaders of the 
various groups were insisting on enforcing the 
observance of strict rules and were paralysing the 
production, just at the moment when it was of vital 
importance to increase it indefinitely. 

These leaders assumed a responsibility for which 
they will pay dearly after the war. As Mr. Lloyd 
George told them, they kept their short-sighted 
eyes fixed obstinately on the minor details of the 
class-conflict, like old horses which continue to wear 
their blinkers and cannot see to right or left. 

129 1 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

A few of these petty tyrants adopted an over- 
bearing attitude at the opening of the Congress. 
The Minister of Munitions was resolved to put these 
arrogant individuals in their place, and, in front 
of all their colleagues, he lashed their folly without 
mercy. His speech ought to have been posted 
up on every wall in England, not omitting the 
worthless and trivial interruptions of a few of the 
delegates. 

" We must make, we are making the most 
prodigious efforts to increase our war material 
during the next few months, in order to give our 
gallant fellows fair play in the field," declared Mr. 
Lloyd George, and he added : " We have set up 
sixteen national arsenals. These we have already 
set up within the last few weeks. We are con- 
structing eleven more. We require, in order to run 
those — the old and the new — and to equip works 
which are at present engaged on turning out the 
equipment of war, eighty thousand more skilled 
men, but we require, in addition to that, two 
hundred thousand unskilled men and women." 

Pursuing his argument, and presenting the facts 
as he had promised, fearlessly and impartially, the 
Minister adds : " You can see the problem with 
which we are confronted. This country at the 

130 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

present moment is not doing its best. It is not 
doing its utmost, and it is almost entirely a labour 
problem, and you alone can assist." 

Anyone who heard the speech or who read the 
text of it attentively in extenso could make no 
mistake concerning the exact significance of the 
Minister's words. 

Fortunately, Mr. Lloyd George, who had 
before him, in the same hall, the working-class 
representatives and employees of Great Britain, 
undertook by means of facts, and nothing but facts, 
not only to convince a few obstinate individuals 
whose resistance scarcely counts any longer, but 
also to enlighten the intelligent men who formed 
the bulk of his audience : 

" Our effort is prodigious. Such as it is," he 
said, " we are increasing it every day. It depends 
on you to give the greatest return possible." 

This is undoubtedly the gist of the speech. 
It would be unfair to extract a few words from the 
whole of an argument and to give them at the same 
time a distorted interpretation. The Germans will 
make up their minds to read only a certain signific- 
ance into Mr. Lloyd George's words, and they will 
exult accordingly, but it is important that, in France, 
no one should be deceived. Our Press and our 

131 I 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

public will understand that it was a question of 
conveying by energetic arguments to certain mis- 
guided souls that their obstruction was as criminal 
as it was foolish. It was a question of overcoming 
a resistance which was far from being general, of 
vanquishing certain elements of mistrust, anti- 
pathies, rancours which were intolerable at a time 
so fraught with tragedy, when private interests 
and corporate privileges ought to weigh nothing 
in the face of a danger which is threatening the 
whole country no less than the whole of civilisation. 
Let us rejoice if Mr. Lloyd George's indefatigable 
efforts do finally extract from the nation the maxi- 
mum effort of which he believes her capable. 
Before the war, he was one of those who fought 
most energetically on behalf of the least-favoured 
classes, and who claimed on their behalf privileges 
which were often judged excessive. These same 
classes will perhaps listen now to the man who 
was their dauntless champion. Democracy smiles 
on those who speak to her of her rights, who 
promise high wages, material well-being, political 
power. But when these same men are compelled 
by circumstances to speak more especially of the 
duties which are incumbent on the working classes 
as well as on the other members of the community, 

132 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

there is a danger that their popularity may suffer 
in consequence. I am convinced that Mr. Lloyd 
George, conscious of the responsibilities towards his 
country and the Allies attached to his office, was pre- 
pared to sacrifice any popularity which could only 
be preserved at the expense of his conscience. 
He will maintain the vigorous attitude which he 
has adopted, regardless of any personal consequences 
which it may involve. 



133 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

XV 

The Progress of Aviation 

T HAVE recently come into contact with a very 
curious set of people. They are not pessim- 
ists, in the sense that they do not venture to 
express any doubts as to the final issue of the 
war ; they admit that the Germans will be defeated ; 
but, as some pretext is required for their lamenta- 
tions, they demand that we should defeat them 
immediately. And when they are told that they 
should do the same as every one else, that they 
should await the issue with confidence, they ex- 
claim, in a tone of the deepest depression : " Ah ! 
That's all very well ! " 

Happily, these melancholy folk are very few in 
number, although this does not prevent them from 
being extraordinarily irritating. It belongs to their 
temperament to groan and whimper and weep ; 
therefore shun these inconsolable croakers, for 
nothing can cure them. When there are no more 
Germans in France or in Belgium, when there is 
no more German army and no more German fleet, 
when the Allies have finally crushed the German 
power, you will meet one of these croakers and he 

134 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

will say, with an expression of grief and vexation : 
" Ah, yes ! but it's very late in the day ! " 

If there were a specific against this croaking, 
in its more or less acute forms, it would be the 
sight of the troops in the fighting-area and a visit 
to the centres where the material of war is being 
manufactured. Thanks to the courtesy of the 
War Office, I embarked on yet another tour through 
the districts in England where men and women in 
hundreds of thousands — making up a total counted 
in millions — produce an inconceivable multitude of 
materials, substances, objects required for the task 
of legitimate defence, which, as a result of the 
methods that have been necessitated, has been 
transformed into a task of merciless extermination. 

At the moment when war broke out, the mili- 
tary aviation services were almost non-existent. 
It was not dreamed that the aeroplane could 
become an instrument of war as useful for scouting 
as for offensive purposes. There did exist some- 
where a kind of laboratory for experimentation, 
which employed a staff of about forty persons. 
However, a few far-seeing minds had predicted 
the part that aerial machines would play in a 
war which all refused to believe would ever take 
place. Certainly the epic conflicts described by 

135 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

H. G. Wells in his " War in the Air " have not 
yet taken place, but who knows what to-morrow 
holds in store ? Let us rather contemplate what 
to-morrow has in store for the Germans in the 
case of an aerial war. 

Wells said that air-machines would easily 
overcome trenches ; that it would be necessary to 
create fleets of twenty thousand attacking aero- 
planes, which would bombard the enemy troops, 
the depots of material and munitions, destroy 
railways and lines of communication, factories, 
artillery parks, aviation camps, and overturn and 
destroy the organisation of the enemy behind their 
fighting lines, while attacking their front. 

It certainly seems as if the prediction of the 
great novelist were about to be realised. Fac- 
tories have sprung out of the ground like mush- 
rooms ; they are being increased and enlarged 
every day. Men and women are working in them 
night and day ; they are like immense hives, in 
which each is allotted his special task. When we 
consider that there are more than five thousand 
different parts in an aeroplane, we realise the 
number and diversity of the machine-tools which 
have had to be constructed and installed, and the 
number of workers who have had to be trained. 

136 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

It is all these preliminaries which take such a 
desperately long time, and we are not surprised 
that it is long when we actually see all that has 
had to be done. 

All this organisation is working now with a 
prodigious activity. In the course of the four 
summer months of 1915 the output increased 
in the proportion of one to four ; that is to say, 
where four months ago one aeroplane was being 
produced, three months ago two were being pro- 
duced, two months ago three, and in the course 
of the last month four, and the progression 
will not stop there. Let us hope that the same 
results have been obtained in the case of all the 
Allies. 

I have seen some marvellous things in those 
factories, where men of science are consecrating 
their whole intelligence and energy to endowing 
the Allied armies with an incontestable superiority 
in the air. I also saw some splendid aviation 
camps, where men were being trained in the 
manipulation of aerial machines. 

There will be no lack of pilots ! 

It goes without saying that the ingenuity of 
the learned men who superintend these services, 
and the constant practice which so many pilots 

137 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

are undergoing, have resulted in numerous im- 
provements that have transformed the original 
machines into machines which have been brought 
to a marvellous degree of perfection. Naturally, 
anyone who is granted the privilege of visiting 
these factories and camps is warned not to dis- 
close anything which might supply useful informa- 
tion to the enemy ; but for this restriction, what 
thrilling details these pages would contain ! 

Nevertheless, it is doubtless permissible to 
mention that there exists a biplane — I have seen 
it fly — which easily maintains a speed of one 
hundred and thirty-six miles an hour, and which 
can rise to a height of nearly two miles in seven 
minutes. This machine possesses yet another ad- 
vantage, which it shares, however, with the other 
aeroplanes which are now being constructed, and 
that is stability ; not that it is equipped with an 
apparatus for securing a greater or less degree of 
stability, but the secret of its construction renders 
it practically uncapsizable, even in a storm or a 
very high wind. As soon as it was set in motion, 
the hum of the motor was deafening. The machine 
seemed as if it wanted to rise then and there, and 
as soon as the props which held the wheels of the 
landing car were drawn aside, it flew up like an 

138 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

arrow. I was lying on the ground so as to have 
a better view of the starting. The wheels left 
the ground almost instantaneously, and, at a 
height of less than twenty yards, the graceful 
and rapid insect began to mount at a very steep 
angle. The dartings and glidings, the leaps and 
the dives of this supple machine, had something 
supernatural, and it was so beautiful that we could 
not restrain cries of admiration ; yet the sight 
has been a familiar one to me since the war, but 
even after the aerial battles which I witnessed at 
the front, and the nocturnal bombardments of the 
English counties by Zeppelins, the evolutions of 
this biplane had something magical. 

The aerial factor has assumed on the front 
an importance which is increasing every day, 
and the Germans themselves recognise the 
superiority of our aviation. In one of the fac- 
tories which I visited, and which covers several 
acres in a charming bit of country, where formerly 
there was nothing but fields and wooded hills as 
far as one could see, I was able to examine a 
German albatross which had been captured by 
the English intact and brought over by air. It 
is a machine which is fitly described by the adjec- 
tives " heavy" and " ungraceful." Elsewhere, one 

139 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

of these clumsy creatures had been taken to 
pieces. 

"It is not surprising that our aviators should 
find it easy to bring to the ground machines like 
that," observed the engineer who was conducting 
us. 

" And you are able to copy their improve- 
ments ? " 

The engineer turned round quickly. 

" Copy ? ■" he exclaimed. " There is nothing 
to copy in their machines. At the present moment 
we are making something very much better than 
that thing." 

An immense red sun is setting on the horizon ; 
the night is falling. From all points of the sky 
great majestic aeroplanes and slender dragon- 
flies with rapid and transparent wings settle, one 
after another, on the vast plain in front of the 
sheds where the men stow them away. We take 
leave of the amiable superintendent who has con- 
ducted us through this murmuring hive, the bees 
of which are holding in reserve some painful 
stings for the enemy, and through the dark roads, 
on which a few policemen stop us from time to time, 
we regain the immense capital over which the power- 
ful beams of the searchlights are raking the sky. 

140 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 



XVI 

With the British Army 

T^vAY after day I have been passing through a 
district where khaki uniforms swarm in 
such abundance that one might fancy oneself on 
the other side of the Channel, in an England 
where all the men had enlisted, and where the 
women had adopted the Red Cross uniform. 

It is fitting that I should first of all express 
my gratitude to those who, from the headquarters 
to the trenches, aided me in my task with so 
much courtesy and good nature. But this war is 
anonymous, and while I cherish some very pleasant 
personal recollections, I must confine myself to 
a general expression of gratitude for the welcome 
which I received. 

The town is in the most complete darkness, 
further enhanced by a fog coming from the sea. 
If the Zeppelins can distinguish anything from 
overhead, their pilots must have remarkably good 

sight. 

As a result of great efforts, I succeed in finding 
141 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

quarters in a hotel full of English officers. The 
two vast dining-rooms are overflowing, and the 
two or three civilians look very out of place. 
Seated round a long table are some officers of 
mature age, wearing on their collars badges which 
indicate that they belong to old regiments, while the 
ribbons sewn side by side on their jackets prove 
that they have taken part in colonial expeditions, 
in which their conduct has earned them medals and 
decorations. There is a group of young lieutenants 
full of high spirits and gaiety. Immediately 
after dinner they put on their wide cloaks and 
stuff into their belts cans, bottles, field-glasses, 
pouches without end. No orderlies accompany 
them ; they themselves carry all these accoutre- 
ments. They also fling over their shoulders enor- 
mous handles fastened by strong straps, and con- 
taining their sleeping sacks and wraps. They will 
not want for anything. In the narrow vestibule 
they jostle against and become entangled with 
one another, and it all adds to their amusement 
and good humour. Every mishap furnishes them 
material for a jest, and they remark in French, 
with the drollest accent : " C'est la guerre ! " — 
a phrase which appears to afford them much de- 
light. 

142 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

With their baggage they crowd in groups of 
five or six into some antique victorias with worn- 
out springs, and, one after the other, these con- 
veyances are drawn forward by the painful efforts 
of the lean horses, and disappear abruptly into the 
night. 

There are scarcely any but English vehicles 
to be seen. In the towns and the villages there 
are notices to remind drivers from the other side 
of the Channel that, on the Continent, traffic does 
not keep to the left, and they learn very quickly 
to keep to the right. 

From the sea to the firing line, on the dunes 
and cliffs of the coast, on the plateaus and plains 
of the interior, in the woods and the meadows, 
everywhere there are encampments under tents 
or light movable barracks. Not a town, not a 
village, not a hamlet, not a farm, not a hut which 
is not swarming with men in khaki, either billeted 
there or on duty. 

The country overflows with soldiers belonging 
to all branches of the Service, but all in the same 
uniform. 

The handsome uniforms with braiding and gold 
lace, the glitter and the pomp of war, have dis- 
appeared. The days of staff officers on prancing 

143 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

horses and couriers at full gallop have passed 
away. Everything that shines or glitters has been 
suppressed. The barrels of the guns no longer 
sparkle, the sheaths of the sabres are enveloped in 
covers of drab-coloured canvas. The guns, the 
ammunition waggons, the carriages, and every 
bit of copper and steel, are covered with a coating 
of paint which renders them invisible at a distance. 
There is no display in modern war ; we are very 
far away from the legend of the Eagle and the 
plumed hats of the Emperor's marshals ! 

The English headquarters have been installed 
in a district which it would be indiscreet to name. 
The Service motor-cars furnish the only signs of 
animation in the quiet provincial town, which 
seems to be inhabited only by English officers — 
tall and slim or short and thickset, but all with an 
air of elegance in the simple uniform which might 
be taken for a sporting suit. 

Except in the principal roads, the town seems 
strangely asleep. Nothing disturbs the torpor of 
the little street in which lurks the frowning struc- 
ture of the law courts, and there is no one but 
myself to admire the well-preserved porch of a 
large church, which appears to have suffered 
considerably from the ravages of men and time. 

144 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

A good old lady, bowed with age and dressed in 
black, emerges from one of the doors, which she 
opens slowly ; then she walks away with short 
steps, her eyes on the ground, as though still lost 
in her prayers. A priest comes out ; he is tall and 
upright, and he steps out vigorously ; each of his 
powerful strides sends his cassock streaming in 
the wind. 

The life of the place is laborious and simple. 
There is nothing here to be compared with the 
splendour of the caravans of the nomad Kaiser, 
as described by the German reporters. 

The staff are installed in buildings which are 
only distinguishable from the rest by the enormous 
bundles of telegraph and telephone wires which, 
to save time, have been summarily passed through 
ventilators or windows, the panes having been 
broken for the purpose. 

Field-Marshal Sir John French is surrounded 
with men who have furnished proof of their capacity 
and their competence ; they feel a well-deserved 
confidence in their leader. The Field-Marshal is 
not going through his first campaign. From the 
age of fourteen and until he was eighteen (he was 
born in 1852), he served as a naval cadet in the 
Royal Navy, in which his father was captain of 

145 K 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

a vessel. Then we find him in the cavalry, and, 

as an officer of the Hussars, he went through the 

Soudan Campaign. He was in Natal when the 

Boer War broke out, and he remained in South 

Africa until the end, lending brilliant support to 

Lord Roberts in those difficult operations. It 

was he who commanded the cavalry of the force 

which relieved Kimberley and the army which 

subsequently seized Bloemfontein, the capital of 

the Orange Republic, and Pretoria, the capital of 

the Transvaal. Now, he is commander-in-chief of 

the British forces which are co-operating in the 

deliverance of Brussels and of martyred Belgium. 

Sir John receives me with a friendly smile. 

" In the course of your visit of inspection/ ' he 

says, " you will have an opportunity of seeing some 

interesting things. While our men in the trenches 

are frustrating the convulsive efforts of the enemy 

to disengage himself from our constant pressure, 

you will see that in the rear everyone is doing his 

duty, and that the British Empire is bent on 

taking her full share, on land as well as on sea, 

in a struggle which England did all she could to 

prevent." And the Field-Marshal repeats, in the 

course of the conversation : " There can be no 

doubt as to the issue." 

146 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

" No doubt as to the issue ! " That is what 
I hear everywhere. From the staffs of armies, 
divisions or brigades down to the non-commissioned 
officers and the soldiers in the trenches, there is 
the same tranquil certainty. 

And, indeed, how could it be otherwise, when 
every day the British contingents on the Con- 
tinent are increasing in number, when the pre- 
parations are being completed with an orderliness 
and method which nothing disturbs, and when the 
superiority over the enemy is being confirmed 
afresh in every attack ? To be sure, the Germans 
proclaim that the Allied armies are at a standstill, 
that they are paralysed with fear and dare not 
budge. The British Army holds quite a different 
opinion ; they observe that it is not the Allies who 
are talking of an " honourable peace," or who 
would be satisfied with an indecisive struggle. 
The men who compose Kitchener's army — " the 
pick of the nation," as Field-Marshal French calls 
them — have not enlisted for nothing. They are 
an army of volunteers ; they were not forced to 
obey an order for mobilisation ; nothing com- 
pelled them to quit their occupations and their 
homes ; these volunteers, recruited from every 
variety of trade and profession and of social class 

147 K 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

and condition, took up arms freely, with the 
resolve to pursue the struggle to the end, to make 
an end of the hateful German menace, to avenge 
Belgium, to restore peace, and to enforce respect 
for right and justice. 

Along the roads convoys are moving con- 
tinuously — motor-lorries with loads of three to 
four tons, horse-carts loaded with blocks of straw 
and fodder which the hydraulic press has rendered 
as heavy as they are economical of space, trains 
of artillery and munitions, long files of motor-buses 
crowded inside and out with infantry on their 
way to the front. 

On the railways there is an incessant traffic 
of trains to the forwarding stations. A parti- 
cular destination is assigned in advance to the 
contents of each carriage or truck ; the delay is 
reduced to a minimum. Cases and bales are trans- 
ferred directly from the train to the motor-lorry 
which is to convey the supplies to the centres 
nearest the firing-line, where they will be divided 
up according to rule and distributed to the 
troops. 

In a thousand different places, from the quays 
of the harbour where they are unloaded up to the 
trenches, this activity is pursued in perfect order, 

148 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

and with an astonishing precision. " Our whole 
system is modelled on yours," I was told by a 
superior officer who was in charge of one of the 
important stations. You might seek in vain for 
any signs of disorder. At the beginning of the 
war we had glimpses of something quite different. 
Then the sides of the roads taken by the armies 
were strewn with a considerable quantity of lost 
property. In La Brie, for instance, after the 
passage of the English troops, who pressed back 
Von Kluck's drunken troops so vigorously in Sep- 
tember, 1914, there were found everywhere aban- 
doned motor-cars and motor-lorries with wheels 
sunk in the ground, with broken frames and dis- 
located machinery, and it was rather a shock to 
encounter, so far from the streets of London or 
Liverpool, these vehicles of all descriptions on 
which were still painted the names of the firms 
who had supplied them. 

There is nothing of the kind to be encountered 
now. When an accident happens, it is immediately 
signalled to the workshops disposed all along the 
route. These travelling workshops are supplied 
with first-rate implements, lathes, dynamos, etc., 
as well as spare parts, and their skilled staff can 
execute any kind of repairs on the spot. 

149 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

As far as possible it is arranged that the traffic 
on the roads should be all in the same direction ; 
that is to say, there is one route for going and 
another for returning. By this means, delays and 
obstructions are avoided. The rapid motor-cars, 
the fast convoys, can easily outstrip a convoy of 
heavy waggons, or the troops of infantry or cavalry 
who are making their way to new cantonments. 

The observance of these traffic regulations is 
superintended by the members of the British 
military police or by our own armed police, both 
employing a red flag similar to that used by gate- 
keepers at level crossings. I may add that they 
never have occasion to resort to force, since all 
submit readily to these regulations. 

All this activity, all this movement of men and 
vehicles, all these efforts are accomplished in a 
serious and business-like fashion. Everyone per- 
forms, to the best of his ability, the duty allotted 
to him, and I am reminded of those files of ants 
which travel briskly and indefatigably across the 
paths of our gardens as soon as the summer 
weather allows them to resume their laborious 
occupations. 



150 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

XVII 

The Indian Contingent 

A LL the illustrations in those primers of French 
history which are placed in the hands of 
schoolchildren, all the pictures in the museum at 
Versailles, all the battle-scenes which artists have 
imagined or writers have described are inadequate 
to give us any idea of what modern warfare really 
is. The actual spectacle is quite different from 
anything that one had pictured. 

In the zone of the British army which I tra- 
versed in every direction, the formidable prepara- 
tion for the offensive is as impressive by its mass 
and multiplicity as by the steadiness and calm 
with which it is accomplished. It is such an 
accumulation of labour, efforts, preparations, such 
a concentration of men and material as it would 
be difficult to conceive. 

A close network of communications is spread over 
the whole region, like one of those diagrammatic 
figures representing the circulation of the blood 
in the human body, and, indeed, the constant 
traffic backwards and forwards which is taking place 

I5i 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

on all these roads and railways might well be 
compared with the vivifying course of the blood 
through the system of veins and arteries. 

We cease to be astonished at the fantastic 
sums which the war is costing when we see all 
that it requires in the shape of armament, equip- 
ment, and the catering for millions of men. 
Everything which human activity employed for 
the labours of peace is now applied to the labour 
of war. The present war has been described 
as " the war of railways," the " war of motor-cars," 
the " war of big guns," the " war of trenches or 
moles," the " war of petrol " — petrol in the air, 
on the land, under the water, etc. It is all that, 
and it is more : every form of motor traction has 
been adapted to the uses of war ; the telephone, 
the telegraph, with or without wires ; photography ; 
aeroplanes or dirigibles; every sort of machinery, 
ancient and modern ; the ballistics of the middle 
ages and the formidable artillery of the pre- 
sent day ; physics ; chemistry — all the sciences 
joined in the effort to improve the implements of 
warfare and to establish a superiority over the 
enemy. 

For the purpose of protesting against the 
German attack, the British Empire, taken un- 

152 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

awares, is devoting all its energies and all its re- 
sources to this military preparation. From its 
factories and ports, all the infinite variety of objects 
required for modern armies are streaming to the 
bases which have been established in France. 
In a thousand places there are enormous accumu- 
lations of stores : spades, pickaxes, wheelbarrows, 
mattocks, pitchforks, hatchets, hammers, nails, 
augers, drilling machines, sapping tools, wire, tools 
for all kinds of trades ; planks, girders, bolts and 
nuts for the repair of bridges ; sleepers and rails for 
reconstructing railways ; carts, lorries, motor-cars, 
tyres, accessory parts and spare parts ; implements 
and materials for engineering, artillery and aviation ; 
tons of oil and spirit for motors ; harness, horse- 
shoes, pumps and shields for the trenches, peri- 
scopes, mountains of sacks to be filled with earth, 
a fantastic collection of ironmongery, an incon- 
ceivable accumulation of anything which may be 
required in the course of the operations. 

While they are organising this enormous effort 
for assisting in the offensive, the English are, at 
the same time, organising in an admirable fashion 
all the necessary arrangements for succouring the 
men whose injuries incapacitate them for further 
fighting. They have arranged their ambulances 

153 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

and hospitals in a marvellous series. A wounded 
or sick man, picked up in the firing-line in the 
morning, may find himself the same evening, 
less than twelve hours later, transported into a 
hospital in England. From the ambulance in- 
stalled near the trenches he is transferred to a 
clearing-hospital, whence the motor-cars convey 
him either to the Red Cross train or else direct 
to the base — generally a port — whence an 
admirably equipped hospital boat transports him 
across the Channel. 

Those whose wounds are too serious to allow 
them to bear the crossing, as well as those who 
can be cured in a few days, are kept in France, 
in hospitals which are excellently managed and 
equipped. With remarkable ingenuity, factories, 
mills, dye-works, etc., have been transformed 
into immense establishments for baths, laundry 
and disinfecting, through which the men pass in 
thousands on their return from the trenches, before 
proceeding to enjoy a rest from the physical fatigue 
and depression which they experience after a 
sojourn in the first line. Some industrial buildings 
have been adapted for the reception of these weary, 
limping men, and after a few days of comfort and 
rest they are once more in a state to rejoin their 

154 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

corps. Nothing is neglected which could ameliorate 
the sufferings or save the lives of these men who 
are spontaneously risking their lives for the defence 
of their country, right, and liberty. 

By the side of this prodigious activity, another 
activity, of an entirely pacific character, has not 
been interrupted. 

In the country the ploughing has been almost 
completed, the corn is sprouting. The labourer 
drives the plough, turns up the furrow, draws the 
harrow or the rake. With rhythmical gesture 
and regular steps, he scatters the fruitful seed or 
the powdered manure, which will sink into the 
ground with the next shower. They are old men 
and women, boys and girls, who apply themselves 
now to these arduous tasks. Their husbands, 
brothers, sons, are engaged in a stern task over 
there where the guns are booming ; they are 
defending their native soil, they are watering it 
with their blood, they are barring the road against 
the brutal invader, they are driving back the 
hordes who had hurled themselves towards an 
imagined victory. 

In the evening, at the farm, the peasant, re- 
turned from his peaceful labour, joins the soldier 
who is resting after his deadly work. In these 

155 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

hours of relaxation they fraternise with and assist 
one another ; the Tommy in khaki grasps the hand 
of the fanner whose sons are at the front ; it is 
only another example of the cordial and pacific 
entente. 

The green plain stretches in gentle undulations 
as far as one can see ; big clouds with silver edges 
are travelling across the blue April sky. For the 
protection of the crop, there are placards in English 
proclaiming that " these fields have been sown ; 
they must not be entered " — a recommendation 
which all obey with a very good will. 

On the broad quay of the harbour, skates, 
dabs, haddocks and gurnards are being unloaded ; 
the fishing boats have been at work regardless of 
submarines, which are kept at a distance by the 
organisation for protecting the coast. Groups of 
Indians are coming and going ; one might fancy 
oneself nearer the Bay of Bengal than the English 
Channel. 

A young Sikh, with a refined face framed by a 
black and curling beard, gazes at me insistently ; 
then he comes towards me, his bronzed face lighting 
up with a smile which exposes his white teeth. 
I am a little surprised, for I have no recollection of 
ever having met this Oriental. 

156 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

He comes straight up to me, makes me a fine 
salute with his hand, and points with his finger to 
my beard, which is also black, but has been 
recently cut. 

" Good, very good," he says, with a broad smile. 
" Like God ! " he adds, and I imagine that he is 
discovering a problematical resemblance to the 
divinity, which is certainly very flattering. Sud- 
denly he makes a grimace, and with an expressive 
gesture, simulating a blade scraping the cheek, he 
confides to me this opinion : " Shave, no good, 
no good ! " With a fresh salute and a friendly 
bow, he passes on, still smiling. 

I proceed on my way, and now that my atten- 
tion has been aroused, I notice that I am one of the 
few bearded individuals in this town, the inhabit- 
ants of which generally wear merely a moustache, 
while the majority of the innumerable English 
soldiers and officers are clean-shaven. But the 
spontaneous compliment of the Indian is a good 
omen, and I observe subsequently that my phy- 
siognomy wins me the sympathetic attention of 
the Indian warriors. 

It is a very curious spectacle to see them in the 
villages where they have been billeted. In barns 
and stables, in the porches of farms, they attend 

*57 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

to their various tasks, prepare their food, groom 
their horses, clean their arms. In groups, squatting 
on their heels in an attitude which would give us 
the cramp in a very short time, they converse in 
strange words, of which we are unable to seize 
even the syllables. They make hardly any ges- 
tures, but their eyes glow in their dusky faces. 
They carry their burdens by preference on their 
heads, and they walk with perfect ease, balancing 
in this way saucepans full of liquid. Others come 
up loaded with wood, or with bundles of straw or 
fodder. Old men with grey beards, supple and 
tranquil, are strolling about with an almost feline 
gait. 

The men on guard are in uniform. Some 
Gurkha infantry, wearing soft hats with turned- 
up brims, stand motionless with arms in position. 
In the hollow of the back, much as a woodcutter 
fastens his pruning hook when he climbs up to trim 
a tree, they carry the famous " kukhri " in its 
leather case. It is a kind of short scimitar or rather 
a broad hatchet, which serves all kinds of purposes 
—for cutting meat, for cleaving wood, and for 
slicing off the heads of the Boches. 

Further on, a patrol of Sikh cavalry, with their 
beards curiously rolled up and fastened behind the 

158 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

ear, pass along the side of the road at a gentle 
trot. With lance in hand, and, hung from the 
saddle, the curved sword which makes one think 
of the Mamelouks, they ride as if they and their 
horses were one. 

All these Indians belong to fighting races, and 
they know that this time it is not a question of a 
rivalry between tribes, of a brief and rapid ex- 
pedition, but of a war which is the conflict of con- 
flicts. That is why they have come in such 
numbers — from the tablelands of the Deccan and 
the valley of the Ganges, from the mountains of the 
Himalayas and Cashmir — to take their part in the 
struggle in which, they say, " our raj is engaged." 
Like the Cossacks of the valleys of Turkestan, 
from whom they are only separated by the moun- 
tains of the Pamir, each soldier furnishes his equip- 
ment, each mounted soldier furnishes his horse, 
his harness and his arms. These Indians, whose 
encampments lend such a picturesque aspect to 
our northern villages, all own property in their own 
country, but there the fields, supported by walls 
of rock, are ranged one above the other on the sides 
of the mountains. Our plains appear to them 
immense, and they are amazed at the size of our 
fields and at their fertility. They ask questions 

159 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

concerning all the details of the cultivation ; they 
want to know what plants, what cereals we sow, 
what manure we employ, and they are very in- 
terested in the results of our harvests. 

But these farmers are also warriors. When 
their native sovereigns summoned them to arms, 
a singular difficulty presented itself. 

" All these young men, these simple jiwans, 
wanted to set off there and then," a rissaldar 
major with a grey beard explained to me. 
" That would have been obviously unjust to 
the older men, who have been waiting so long," 
he added, with an amusing accent of disapproval. 
" But you see, sahib, the young men fancy that 
they have a right to everything in the world ! " 

In accordance with his traditions and his sen- 
timents, the Indian only allows his son to fight 
if the latter is married and, in his turn, father of 
a son, for he believes that if a man dies without 
male offspring, his soul and the souls of his ancestors 
perish eternally. Therefore, to ensure this sur- 
vival, this immortality, the head of a family 
will marry several wives, and he watches very 
carefully over the safety of his sons, who 
are future husbands and the fathers of the next 

generation. 

160 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

It is by a profound instinct, by a sound morality 
also, that the Indian watches over the conservation 
of his race. 

It is a splendid day, perfect weather for watching 
the procession and the exercises of the Indian 
cavalry. 

The motor-car threads its way through narrow 
roads, in which we are obliged to shave the ditches 
very close when we encounter other traffic. Every- 
where, in the early morning calm, under the wide 
clear sky, men are at work in the fields, ploughing 
and harrowing ; and the reins of the horses are 
almost always held by women. Willows with great 
downy buds grow by the side of the river, which 
meanders across the meadows where cattle are 
grazing and ruminating. Peasant women in their 
best clothes are driving carts in which a calf is 
lamenting or sheep are bleating. It is market 
day in the little town, and the rustic vehicles 
oblige us to advance slowly and cautiously. It is 
just as well, for what jolts we should have if we 
travelled fast along the uneven and muddy surface 
of these lanes ! 

When we emerge, we encounter more undula- 
tions, ascents and descents, and then the road 
follows the edge of the plateau. The Indian 

i6r L 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

cavalry are resting there in two rows between the 
trees. At a crossroad, which might well be named 
the meeting-place of all the winds, the general 
who is commanding the division and his staff 
have alighted. Like all the English officers I have 
met, they give me a simple and courteous welcome. 
The general makes a sign. Into the saddle ! The 
column is formed, the defiling begins. The majors 
give a brief command : Eyes left ! Each horse- 
man turns his head towards our group, perched 
on a sloping bank. As they pass, the general 
tells me the names of the regiments and the origin 
of the men : Sikhs, Punjabis, Rajputs, Afghans, 
etc. — for they are not distinguishable from one 
another in their khaki uniform, and they no longer 
wear their sumptuous bright-coloured silk turbans. 
Behind the regiments come the supply and am- 
bulance waggons drawn by mules, moving with 
brisk and rhythmical step, and harnessed two 
abreast, in the style of the rustic carts used in our 
sandy plains, but instead of the mules passing 
their heads through an iron collar fixed to the 
end of the pole, they support a kind of yoke 
made of iron rods and apparently light and strong, 
attached to the breast strap. 

The general leaps into the saddle and sets off 
162 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

at a gallop in order to get a little way ahead, 
while I am still admiring these superb horsemen. 

En route for the meeting place ! The motor- 
car soon catches up the escort, and we adapt our 
speed to the latter. In the narrow wooded 
valley, the procession, the importance of which is 
indicated by the red flag of the general, brings the 
inhabitants out on their doorsteps, for there are a 
number of cottages in this humid corner. The 
soldiers who are attending to the work of the 
cantonment stand up quickly. The sentries 
promptly rest their guns on their shoulders and 
raise their free hand to the butt-end. That is the 
regulation salute. The horses do not seem to 
notice that the road is one series of holes and 
ruts. The motor slips about in the black mud. 
Very possibly it is the slime of the river, which 
has recently overflowed; the tortuous windings 
of the river are all repeated in this impossible 
road. Finally, by way of a steep zigzag ascent, 
which must be a torrent when it rains, we 
emerge on to a wide tableland. A portion of the 
ground has not been ploughed since the harvest, 
and this serves for the manoeuvres of the cavalry. 

On all sides the horizon is bordered by wooded 
hills, but a gap towards the north reveals ten 

163 L 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

tall, smoking chimneys round two enormous 
pyramid-shaped piles. 

At the base of a very gentle declivity, against 
a background of trees, the regiments arc massed. 
At a sign from the general, an officer sets off at 
full gallop, and, in a moment, the squadrons 
spring forward. The charge ! It is more than 
magnificent. The gallop of the horses is muffled 
in the light soil, but it makes the earth tremble ; 
the riders brandish their sabres and their lances, 
al. (lie same time uttering guttural cries, which arc 
blent into a hellish clamour. I seem to be wit- 
nessing some devil's ride. Rider and horse are 
one. They are marvellous horsemen, these Indians, 
veritable centaurs ; and the English officers leading 
I hem, who are also turbancd, seem to equal 
them. 

The general at my side smiles. 

" Now they are happy," he remarks. ' They 
adore these exercises, and the bad weather has 
hindered them so often. This is our first day of 
sunshine. You arc lucky ! " 

" No doubt they would prefer an actual 
fight," I remark. 

' Yes, certainly. They arc longing to charge 
the Bodies. What we saw of the German cavalry 

164 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

at the outbreak of hostilities did not inspire us 
with any anxiety, far from it ! The German horse- 
man is clumsy and unskilful." 

That could not be said of the general's horse- 
men, and I am about to see the proof of it. 

The squadrons face one another in two lines, 
separated by a space of about thirty yards. The 
men dismount. In the first rank arc drawn up 
the native non-commissioned officers : daffadars, 
jemadars, rissaldars, all tall and vigorous, every 
feature in their bearded — often grey-bearded — 
faces is absolutely immobile. 

A few country people approach who have 
already looked on at the charge : old labourers, 
little peasant boys and girls, who are leaving their 
work in order to lose nothing of a spectacle, of 
which they will certainly preserve an ineffaceable 
recollection ; also, by the side of two gamekeepers 
with brick-red complexions and white moustaches, 
there is a venerable-looking old man who is acting 
as chaperone to a troop of fashionably-dressed 
young women and girls. 

" They are going to do the kartab," said the 
general, and he explains to me that this word 
signifies tournament, feats of skilled horsemanship. 

First of all some soldiers and non-commissioned 

165 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

officers perform the ordinary jumping exercises — 
the hedge, the ditch, and so forth. Then a group 
of horsemen assemble at the head of the course, 
turning their backs to the sun. In the ground 
in front of us are planted four little boards, three 
fingers broad, and four horsemen spring forward, 
uttering cries ; they lower their lances and, with 
a sure aim, they tear up the board. This exercise 
is repeated several times with the same success, 
and now the boards are stuck in the ground with 
the edge, instead of the face, to the riders. The four 
lances pick up their target with the same pre- 
cision, amid cheers and applause. 

On little stakes, pointed at each end and placed 
in a line, at intervals of a few yards, beetroots are 
fixed. Setting their horses at a gallop, the riders 
hang down at the side, outside the saddle, brandish 
their sabres, and, with a clean stroke, cut off a 
slice from each of the beetroots as they pass. 

Next, several white handkerchiefs are placed 
on the ground, and they are picked up with the 
same ease. However, one of the horses suddenly 
plunges and rears ; the rider falls and his foot 
remains caught in the stirrup ; he is dragged 
along for a considerable distance before he can 
free himself. For a moment we are filled with 

166 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

anxiety and distress. But the man gets up 
and darts off in pursuit of his mount ; it is 
miraculous ! 

" All right ! They are like cats ! " observes 
the general laconically. 

And the sports continue. Now there are 
acrobatic feats. One of them trots round the 
course, his hands gripping the saddle-girth and his 
legs straight up in the air. Another is erect, 
one bare foot on the back of each of two horses 
driven at a gallop. Then three horses trot abreast 
while five, then six, then eight of these equilibrists 
climb on each other's shoulders and form living 
pyramids on their backs. 

Before performing these exercises, they have 
taken off their turbans and rolled up their thick 
black hair in a firm knot on the top of the head. 
One of them has wrapped his head in a bright red 
handkerchief, and when he passes, standing erect 
on the back of his swift horse, he makes one think 
of one of Buffalo Bill's redskins or a character out 
of one of Gustave Aimard's novels. 

A murmur, shouts, laughter. Two fresh boards 
have been planted in the ground, and the general 
satisfaction is explained : on one is painted the face 
of the Emperor of the Boches, with his moustache 

167 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

turned up to his eyes, and the squarest head that 
could be imagined. The other is carved out to 
represent the unprepossessing profile of the plun- 
dering Crown Prince. 

Two bearded horsemen leap into the saddle 
and grasp their lances. A shout. The horses 
start. The two men lean forward, with jaws 
thrust out, they yell epic invectives, and the cut 
from their lance is so violent that it cleaves asunder 
the two abhorred effigies. 

They raise their weapons and utter a shout of 
triumph, which is soon repeated by the twenty 
thousand Indian horsemen. It is an immense, 
a deafening clamour, which the west wind bears 
away over there to the enemy crouching in their 
burrows. 



t68 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 



XVIII 

The Aerial War 

T?ROM the height, whence we have scared 
away several flights of rooks, we can see 
over a vast stretch of the front. Over there, the 
English lines join the French lines. With field- 
glasses we can distinguish the zigzag double lines 
made by our trenches and those of the enemy. 
In front and to the rear of these defences there is 
nothing but ruin and devastation. Villages have 
been razed to thr ground, farms and factories 
burnt ; the bridges are cut and the roads broken 
up with shells. The vision of this destruction 
makes us clench our fists. However, facing the 
canal and the railway, a piece of wall has been 
left standing, on which we can still decipher the 
name of a famous brand of tonic and aperient 
wine, painted in enormous letters ! 

" It is quiet enough to-day," remarks the com- 
manding officer. 

Indeed, the shots from the artillery are so 
infrequent that we almost forget them. But all 

169 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

at once our ears are greeted with the sound of a 
brisk cannonade. In the sky, very high up, we 
see sudden brilliant flashes ; they leave white 
tufts, which turn grey, expand, and finally become 
distended into heaving black masses of cloud. 

They are firing at an aeroplane, and soon we 
can distinguish something resembling a gnat moving 
over our lines. Suddenly, two Allied aeroplanes 
approach swiftly from heaven knows where. The 
cannonade ceases. Our great birds are barring 
the road to the enemy ; they surround him, tease 
him, cut off his retreat, and suddenly the Taube 
rocks, heels over and slides towards the ground, 
too quickly for it to be anything but a fall. 

To the deafening roar of the big guns, we set 
off towards the front, making prudent detours by 
side roads, for motor-cars are often pestered by 
the enemy shells. We reach the point beyond 
which motors cannot proceed, and we continue 
our way on foot. 

As we come out of the village, we encounter 
a crowd of children on the edge of a field bustling 
about and shouting. Girls and boys display an 
equal ardour. They are formed into two camps. 
One occupies a trench for storing beetroots, which 
has recently been emptied of its contents ; the 

170 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

other is installed in a parallel trench for storing 
potatoes. In these trenches a desperate conflict 
is in progress. The damaged roots and tubers 
which have been left there by the farmer serve as 
projectiles which have this advantage over hand- 
grenades, that they can be used several times 
over. The unwieldy beetroots and the more 
modestly-proportioned potatoes cross and re-cross 
each other incessantly. In the case of these belli- 
gerents, the problem of munitions has been solved 
without any difficulty, and there is a musty smell 
which seems to indicate that the use of asphyxiating 
bombs is not forbidden. Some of these projec- 
tiles, after several journeys through the air, become 
soft, and are sometimes crushed on the adversary, 
when they emit nauseating odours. No matter! 
The munitions are renewed inexhaustibly ; it is 
only a matter of picking them up from the ground 
and hurling them at the enemy without mercy. 

But the two armies are soon tired of fighting 
at the distance which separates their trenches. 
" The bayonet ! " cries the beetroot general. " The 
bayonet ! " retorts the red-faced dishevelled little 
girl who appears to command the mixed contin- 
gent of potatoes. The attack is simultaneous. The 
sides of the trenches are soon scaled and, with an 

171 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

irresistible onset, the combatants hurl themselves 
upon one another in a heroic hand-to-hand struggle, 
the issue of which I did not wait to see. 

The reason why the German aviators are so 
obstinate in their endeavours to manoeuvre above 
our lines is that they are very curious to discover 
the situation of the batteries which spatter their 
trenches with shells and shrapnel. They are also 
anxious to obtain information concerning the 
movements of the troops, and to observe at what 
points the hundreds of thousands of men com- 
posing the British forces are concentrating. But 
the shots from the anti-aircraft guns and the rapid 
pursuit of the Allied aviators compel them to re- 
trace their path, or at any rate not to descend to 
a distance which would allow them to photograph 
the district. When they do pass our defences, 
it is at such a height that they cannot distinguish 
anything of what is happening below, and still less 
take photographs. 

In a plain across which the eye can travel 
unobstructed to the wide stretch of horizon an 
anti-aircraft gun is planted. In this spot every- 
thing is marvellously well adapted for concealing 
effectually the gun and the movable platform which 
supports it. It cannot be detected from any point 

172 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

of the surroundings nor from the sky, but those 
who are serving it are on the watch. An aeroplane 
is signalled in the east. Is it an Ally coming 
home or an enemy venturing on an excursion ? A 
powerful telescope reveals the fact that it is a 
German biplane. An order is shouted. The men 
come out from their straw huts and the work 
begins with precision and rapidity. The non- 
commissioned officer jumps lightly on the platform, 
his chart of adjustments in his hand ; the lieu- 
tenant indicates an angle and gives a figure ; the 
gun is lowered, then raised, and the fuse of the shell 
is set for the time of burst ; one, two, three, 
ten shots, like so many beats on a drum, and ten 
shells spring into the air before the nose of the 
aviator who, without a moment's hesitation, turns 
tail and regains his lines. 

The road climbs the hill almost in a straight 
line, and, on the other side, which slopes very 
gently, there is an aviation camp on either hand. 
There are many others in the region occupied by 
the British forces, and they all resemble one 
another ; everywhere there is the same order, 
the same practical arrangements, the same fruitful 
industry. Each of these vast and marvellous 

*73 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

installations can be transported at a moment's 
notice to another position, whenever the advance 
of the Allies may render it necessary. 

The sheds are full of machines, and a consider- 
able number even, owing to lack of space, remain 
outside, exposed to the fine rain which is dimming 
the atmosphere and soaking the ground. There 
will not be any ascents until the sky has cleared, 
and, according to the most optimistic predictions, 
this will not be until after a good hour and a half, 
which leaves me time to visit at my leisure the 
various sections and structures of the camp. 

A whole file of workshops fitted up on motor- 
lorries and containing an incredible variety of 
machine tools and motors are utilised for the 
execution of immediate repairs, and the constant 
examination of the motors of the aeroplanes which 
it is so important — in fact, essential — to maintain 
in perfect working order. 

Staffs of skilled workmen, superintended by 
engineers, devote their knowledge and their en- 
thusiasm to the task of rendering the new arm 
more and more effective. Thanks to them, the 
aviator can demand the utmost from his machine, 
he feels no anxiety concerning his safety, and 
he can accomplish with confidence those aerial 

174 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

exploits of which we sometimes read in the 
communiques. 

In premises where one would hardly suspect 
their presence, workshops have been installed for 
the repair of the wings, fuselage, and the whole 
body of the machine. There the holes made by the 
shot and by the bursting of the shells are stopped 
up. The canvas is dressed with coatings of a 
special plaster, the smell of which — a mixture of 
ether, chloroform and heaven knows what — is so 
nauseating that I seek, in preference to this suffo- 
cation, the rain and the misty atmosphere outside. 

These yards and workshops are distributed 
and disguised with remarkable ingenuity. Nothing 
reveals their situation. In order to pass from one 
to the other, it is necessary to make a 
veritable voyage of discovery. Suddenly we come 
upon the wireless station. The equipment is 
perfect. It can be taken down and transported 
and set up again with the utmost rapidity. For 
the moment, it has settled down in its present 
position, and is in perfect working order. Type- 
writing machines are making several copies of 
messages which have been picked up. Just now 
the German communique was intercepted. The 
operator is receiving the French communique. 

175 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

After a moment, he brings me a typewritten copy ; 
I find it interesting, but not exciting. Moreover, 
the communiques, whatever their contents, do 
not excite anyone in this zone of the armies. We 
know that they can only announce incidents, the 
results of local conflicts, which are of very small 
importance in relation to the end which we have 
in view. We realise that the essential thing is to 
complete the preparations, and that, when we do 
begin to advance, we shall not be content to stop 
short at Lille. Certainly we are pleased at the 
successes, which prove our growing superiority 
over the enemy, but, on the whole, these com- 
muniques issued twice daily furnish the soldiers 
only matter for jest, and it is rare to find an 
officer who troubles to read them. They are con- 
vinced that the continual and obstinate pressure, 
the constant nibbling to which the enemy is sub- 
jected are the important elements in the struggle, 
that the enemy's resistance is wearing down, that 
it is growing weaker every day, that his most 
cowardly methods of attack are failing, and that, 
when he begins to retreat, we shall not be far 
from the decisive result. 

The sky has certainly cleared. I return to 
the park, and, just as I arrive on the crest, a great 

176 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

biplane ascends, followed by several other aero- 
planes, among them a monoplane capable of a very 
high speed. These ascents take place without 
any useless discussion. The pilots only utter a 
few words ; the assistants are diligent, but without 
any precipitation. The aviators start off without 
any more fuss than if they were making an ex- 
cursion for pleasure. And yet some of them bear 
a cargo of heavy bombs, which they will drop 
on some German strategic point, whence they 
will receive a shower of projectiles ; others, sen- 
tinels of the air, will make vigilant patrols to the 
extreme edge of our lines, in the range of enemy 
shrapnel. They will perhaps be obliged to engage 
in a fight, but they no longer trouble themselves 
with these conjectures. Yesterday they set off, 
and they returned with their task accomplished; 
they are setting off to-day on a task which they 
fully expect to accomplish ; for the rest, we shall 
see. 



177 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

XIX 

Under the Shells 

HP HERE are regions which are exposed to 
shell fire, and there are regions which are 
no longer exposed to it, but in both, as well as in 
those which have never endured it, the thing that 
strikes us is the persistency of the life in these 
places. However great may have been the de- 
vastation in the towns and the villages, the fields 
and the forests, however great it may be still, life 
at once resumes her rights, she closes the wounds, 
she heals, she resuscitates. The contrast is striking, 
and this is perhaps the reason why those who are 
fighting in these regions never experience dis- 
couragement. The spectacle of a life stronger 
than death is a symbol which, consciously or 
unconsciously, makes an impression upon all those 
on our side who are under arms, a symbol which 
inspires them with that absolute certainty in a 
coming victory. The labour of destruction and 
death undertaken by the Germans is doomed to 
defeat ; the effort of life which we are main- 
taining will triumph, as the sunshine of spring 
succeeds the inclemencies of winter. 

178 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

Life waxes vigorous and multiplies in order to 
kill and destroy, to devastate and crush, but she 
displays an equally effectual power to calm and 
repair, to transfigure and revive. As soon as the 
hurricane of devastation and death has passed, 
its traces are rapidly effaced. The spots from 
which the invader has been expelled are cleansed 
of their stains and their ruins restored. In several 
villages in the rear of the firing-line, only the 
marks of the shots on the front of the buildings 
reveal the fact that they have been the scene of 
a battle ; the window-panes have been replaced, 
the dislocated shutters readjusted in their hinges, 
the framework and panels of the doors restored ; 
roses and wisteria have been trained against the 
walls ; in the gardens the trees have been trimmed, 
the borders have been hoed, the beds have been 
sown, the paths weeded ; the guns can still be 
heard in the distance, and the faces of the people 
are still stern and their eyes flash, but in their 
hearts is the hope of victory. 

Victory ! The population of the districts where 
the cannon thunder speak the word in a grave and 
eager tone. It is for the sake of treating them- 
selves to a victory against the aggressor that the 
children play at war. Young men and young 

179 M 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

girls, wives and mothers, old men and old women 
who have bravely accomplished their heavy tasks 
in the fields and the workshops, pray that victory 
may bless the brothers, fathers and sons who are 
fighting yonder to crush the aggressor. To these 
simple and honest souls victory is the certainty 
that the enemy, the hateful Boche, will be chas- 
tised, that he will be compelled to expiate his 
crimes ; it is the vague notion that these hordes 
who have been let loose against us, and all their 
leaders, will be exterminated. It is the firm 
conviction that reparation, compensation, indem- 
nities will be exacted from them without pity. 
And when their anger rises at the sight of the 
pillage, the devastation and the mourning, then 
victory is the fierce desire that the enemy too should 
suffer in his property and his person ; it is a pas- 
sionate craving for reprisals, a cry of implacable 
vengeance. Victory means, too, the return of those 
who have gone, the end of the anxiety for their 
safety endured day after day, and, for the relations 
of those who will not return, it means peace in 
which to mourn them, with the consolation that 
they have not died in vain. 



180 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

XX 
Ix the Rear oe the Trenches 

/^X a sr:: which :s now outside the range :: the 

rrman guns, the ruins of houses, the burnt 
remains of a hospital and sine factories bear 
witness to the achievements of Germanic culture. 
Here the houses have not been restored so quickly ; 
the holes have been summarily stopped up with 
beams, planks, rafters, against which have been 
nailed doors, fragments of furniture or partition 
walls, and inside, people are living. Beyond the 
bridge, a mill which has escaped injury is stQ] 
working, but the dye-works have been requisitioned 
by the Enelish military authorities, who have 
transformed them into an establishment for baths, 
laundry and disinfection, for the troops. Every 
dav, eight hundred men come here, straight from 
the trenches, to enjoy the comfort of a thorough 
clean-up. 

W irking women, whose fact ones are idle, have 
D er. rired, and the whole day the}' are washing, 
rinsing, drying, mending and folding the linen of 
the soldiers. 

On the ground floor there are at least a hundred 
1S1 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

of them busy in front of their tubs and mangles, 
and they are singing as they work ... It is 
not a merry song, nor is it a plaintive dirge. I try 
to catch the words ; it is not easy, but it is evidently 
a patriotic song into which, in accordance with 
its unfailing custom, the popular taste has infused 
a note of sentimental romance. The melody is 
not unpleasing ; sung in unison by all these voices, 
it might be one of those old songs which Madame 
Yvette Guilbert has re-discovered and interpreted 
so perfectly. But the sentimental accents of this 
song are sometimes interrupted by an unexpected 
note. The women emphasise certain passages, 
giving them the force of a threat, intensified by 
a defiant lift of the head and flashing eyes. I 
ask one of them the name of the song. 

" We sing several," she answers obligingly. 
" This one is called : ' The English and the French 
are invincibly brave ! '* One of the soldiers sent 
it to his mother, that old woman over there. We 
liked it, so we all learnt it and we sing it." 

They have reached the last couplet, and almost 
without transition, without anyone giving the 
word, after only the briefest interval of silence, a 

* " Les Anglais et les Francais ont un courage 
invincible." 

182 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

tall stout Flemish girl, with an enormous erection 
of hair, strikes up another air which is scarcely 
distinguishable from the previous one. 

" Did the soldier send that one too to his 
mother ? " 

" No," replies the good woman. " That one 
is the ' Cursed Prussian/ "* 

She pronounces these last words in a tone of 
hate and scorn, and when I thank her, she smiles, 
grasps energetically the handle of her mangle 
and joins her voice with those of her companions. 

We are the first at the meeting-place. From 
the summit of the hill, the eye embraces the whole 
district. The weather is fine. The horizon above 
the sea is only faintly touched with mist. The 
vast tract of water is covered with glittering points 
of light. A streak of sunlight passes between the 
clouds like the beam of an immense searchlight 
and rests on the town of Ypres, forming an island 
of light in which the mountains rise up and stand 
out against the sombre background of the region 
beyond. The monuments are great white ruins, 
for the fire has eaten away the thick incrustation 
which had been spread over them in the course 
of centuries by those subtle arts of the weather, 
* "Prussien maudit." 

183 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

which paint the winter with grey fog and the summer 
with luxuriant splendours. 

A group of officers come round the corner of 
the road. Their legs — shapely and muscular 
as those of a thorough-bred, if the comparison 
may be permitted — are swathed in leggings and 
puttees — that is to say, leather gaiters and 
strips of cloth. They cross the courtyard, which 
is surrounded on three sides by huts, squatting 
under their thatched roofs. There is no door or 
barrier, but the entrance is guarded by a huge 
spaniel, with a long silky coat, attached by a long 
chain to its brick kennel which is built up against 
the wall. This good animal grows very excited 
as soon as he hears the steps. He gives a few joyful 
barks. He has recognised friends — allies ! At the 
sight of the group his joy is redoubled ; he stands 
up on his hind-paws and wags his tail. The 
officer who is walking in front notices him at once : 
" Hullo, boy ! " he says gaily. Turning a few 
steps out of the way, he goes up to the dog and 
caresses him affectionately with both hands ; the 
good beast lies on the ground, rolls over, and ex- 
presses his contentment by all the means that 
dogs have at their disposal. 

From the threshold of one of the huts, a little 
184 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

child is contemplating the scene, with one finger 
in his mouth and his head shyly bent. By the 
side of the child, a lean grey cat, with short fur 
and long legs, makes its appearance and then 
crosses the court and proceeds towards the kennel. 
With tail erect and arched back, it rubs itself 
against the leggings of the officer, who exclaims : 
" What ! you too ! " and gives it a share of his 
caresses. 

Then the child in his turn comes forward, 
but the officer has got up, and he joins us in a 
few vigorous strides. The modest emblem on 
his shoulder — a sword and a staff placed crosswise 
and surmounted by a crown — reveal him to be the 
general for whom we are waiting. As soon as 
the introductions have been made, without further 
preamble, the conversation begins. With a charm- 
ing cordiality, and, above all, with a delightfully 
animated tone and gesture, the general proceeds 
to give us a veritable lecture on that stern struggle 
in Flanders, indicating the localities and supplying 
all the geographical and strategic particulars which 
enable us to judge the greater or less importance 
of the battles. As we listen to his vivid and 
detailed description, we feel that this leader, with 
his penetration and foresight, will always be the 

185 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

master of circumstances, and will prove himself 
equal to every emergency. Moreover, he has 
served in ten campaigns in India, taken part in 
the South African War, in which he was seriously 
wounded, and he was present in the Russo-Japanese 
War and saw the battles of Liao Yang, Tcha Ho 
and Mukden. He is certainly a soldier, a man of 
war, but he has not given utterance to a single 
brutal or violent expression ; he has not pro- 
nounced a single judgment of the Bernhardi type 
or laid down a rule bearing even the remotest 
resemblance to those of the " Kriegsbrauch " of 
the Prussian staff. Certainly, his thrilling account 
is free from sentimentality or affected sensibility, 
and he confronts the tragic consequences of war 
without flinching, but this English gentleman has 
not in any sense renounced his sentiments of 
humanity. When he is obliged to mention the 
enemy, he does not break out into words of hatred 
and fury ; he remarks quietly how formidable 
the enemy is, and he observes that now the Allied 
troops have really gained the ascendency over him, 
in spite of his treacherous devices. The perfidy 
and treachery of the Germans only provoke from 
the general the remark : " Oh ! they are a 
despicable race." 

186 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

The majority of the English officers that I 
have talked to express the same opinion. They 
do not make light of the strength of the enemy 
or his resources, or his obstinacy. They know that 
they are matched against a formidable adversary, 
supported by a powerful organisation, an adver- 
sary who will resort to every sort of crime, to the 
most villainous practices. Having recognised this 
fact, they are on their guard, and they do not 
indulge in idle recriminations. 

When I speak of the infamous conduct of the 
Germans, the general interrupts me : " That's not 
war ; that's murder ! " 

The thunder of the guns continues ; some aero- 
planes pass and disappear. Through the field- 
glasses, aided by the descriptions furnished by the 
general, we can follow the line of the trenches. 
The orderly officers are gathered in front round 
one of their number, who is making a rapid sketch 
of the panorama. The little child has just joined 
us. Apparently he is trying to attract the atten- 
tion of the general, who is entirely absorbed in his 
explanations. But the little creature is persistent. 
He has just planted himself in front of us, and, with 
a comical awkwardness, he makes the military 
salute ; silent, motionless, planted firmly on his 

187 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

little feet cased in shoes that are too big for them, 
he keeps his right hand raised to his forehead, with 
his plump little ringers separated, in the drollest 
attitude. At length the general perceives him, 
and he bursts out laughing at the sight of this 
chubby face with its comical expression of gravity. 
He calls one of his orderly officers, who comes up, 
and, on seeing the child, pulls out from the pocket 
of his wide cloak a handful of cakes, some tablets 
of chocolate and a banana ! The wide open eyes 
of the fair-haired little boy open wider still, his 
pout changes into a radiant smile, he hugs all these 
good things in his two arms ; then he resumes 
his serious expression ; looking up at the general, 
he piles his treasures on to his left arm, and gravely, 
as an expression of his thanks, he makes a fine 
military salute. 



188 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

XXI 

The Miller 

/^vN the towns and the villages situated a few 
miles to the rear of the trenches, the shells 
fall according to the caprice of the enemy. When 
you make inquiries concerning these bombardments, 
the inhabitants answer placidly : " It is two, 
three, eight days since we have seen anything;" 
or else : " Yesterday evening, or this very morning, 
they threw us some of their saucepans." 

The Germans show a special vindictiveness 
towards the churches, towards all those lofty 
buildings which, in this flat country, might serve 
as a useful post of observation. It is a stupid 
vindictiveness on their part, because there are more 
convenient and effective means of observing them 
without exposing oneself to their fire. It may 
safely be said that you will never find a soldier in a 
belfry or on any other elevation which would pre- 
sent too easy a target to the enemy. If, for the 
Boches, " Necessity knows no law," in the case of 
the English — and ourselves — necessity breeds in- 
genuity, and our posts of observation are just 
where one would least expect to find them. 

189 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

However, as mine was a purely civilian 
curiosity, I climbed one day on to one of those 
hillocks that one finds in Flanders, from which I 
wished to get a panorama of the district. Not 
far from it I crossed an encampment of sturdy 
and war-seasoned Scotchmen, with their plaid 
kilts protected under a short apron of khaki 
material. Some of the men were busy at various 
occupations, while others were playing a game of 
football to keep themselves in training, and an- 
other detachment were practising shooting with an 
improvised target, by the side of another group 
who were being initiated into the manipulation of 
machine-guns. 

A stony and uneven road leads to the summit 
of the cone. Half-way up are three or four thatched 
huts sheltered from the west wind ; some women 
cross the common courtyard carrying pails which 
they take to the stables. At the entrance, a big 
watch-dog jumps forward on his chain with a 
sudden bark. On the summit a large windmill 
with idle sails rears its carcase of greenish wood, 
washed by the rains of Flanders, " la longue pluie 
des vieux pays, eternelle et torpide," as Emile 
Verhaeren says in one of his magnificent poems. 

With a slow and even step, an old peasant 
190 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

climbs the straight road, makes his way to the 
steps of the mill, climbs up and disappears. All 
at once the sails begin to move, as though half- 
regretful at having been roused from their torpor. 
The miller comes down the steps, unhooks the chain, 
moves off to fasten it to another post, comes back 
to the windlass, grasps his levers, rolls the chain 
on to the axle, and the whole framework of the 
mill revolves slightly. The sails take the wind 
better and better, they move faster and faster ; 
with a wide impetuous gesture each arm descends 
in pursuit of its predecessor, and there is some- 
thing at the same time formidable and fascinating 
in this obstinate chase. 

This sudden setting in motion of the windmill 
perplexes me a little. There have been so many 
stories of spies who have made use of the hands of 
clocks and the sails of windmills for making signals. 
From this eminence I can distinguish clearly the 
sinuous line of the German trenches, and I can hear 
the guns distinctly. In the plain, not far off, the 
shells have wiped out villages, burnt down farms, 
demolished a tile-kiln. But to left, to right, to the 
rear, other windmills are turning. There is no 
cause for uneasiness. And, after all, why not go 
and see what is happening up there ? 

191 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

I venture up the rickety staircase. This great 
mill has two pairs of millstones, of which only one 
is working. The miller raises his head ; he is a 
tall old man, thin, withered, with a large aquiline 
nose ; his thick white hair contrasts with his 
brick-red face, the deep wrinkles of which are 
accentuated by the flour-dust which has settled in 
them ; little gold rings are suspended from the 
elongated lobes of his ears. I bow to him. He 
replies with a nod. I open the conversation ; he 
looks at me without saying a word. 

" Good," I say to myself. "This good man only 
speaks and understands Flemish." 

But, for some reason or other it occurs to me 
that perhaps he is merely deaf ; I raise my voice : 

" Have you had the Germans here ? " 

" Yes, sir, and they have carried off all my 
bran without paying me." 

This purely personal grievance is uttered in 
a tone of bitterness. The miller glances towards 
the spout to see if the damsel is working and the 
corn falling regularly from the hopper on to the 
millstone. 

" Were you bombarded ? " 

" No, they retreated too far at the beginning. 
But the— the— the— " 

192 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

He is seeking a word which will not come, but 
he points to the sky, and I suggest : 

" Aeroplanes ? " 

He stares at me with wide-open eyes, and I 
repeat, raising my voice : 

" Aeroplanes ? " 

But still he does not understand, though his 
eyes follow the movements of my lips, and he 
repeats : 

" The— the— the— " 

This time I shout the word in his ear : 

" Aeroplanes ? " 

He seems more and more at a loss, and con- 
tinues : 

" The— the— " 

Certainly, this man has never taken the trouble 
to augment his vocabulary with the name of the 
machines which he sees manoeuvring in the sky 
every day, but no doubt he has ceased to take any 
notice of them. Suddenly, he has an idea : 

" The what you call them threw bombs which 
fell into the fields, and one of them destroyed a 
roof down there." 

I pass my head through the round opening in 
the wall, and I see a thatched cottage in ruins. 

" They were aiming at the mill ? " 

I93 N 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

" Very likely ! Very likely ! " the miller admits. 

With his hand he pushes the flour which is 
accumulating on the scuttle into the sack. Then 
he murmurs : 

' Yes ; they took all my bran without paying 
for it ! " 

He says this in the toneless voice peculiar to 
deaf people. We have come back to the point 
from which we started ; the good man feels a 
resigned indignation. This fashion of appropriating 
what does not belong to you seems to him an in- 
conceivable thing. For him, it is the whole war. 
The bombs of the aeroplanes do not cause him 
any anxiety ; he is doubtless not convinced that 
they were intended for him. Why should any- 
one destroy his mill ? He does not inconvenience 
anyone, and corn must be ground to make bread. 
But if you take bran you pay for it ! The mind 
of the miller does not venture beyond that point. 
Under these circumstances, conversation is diffi- 
cult, especially when one has to wear out one's 
lungs in order to be heard. From the threshold 
I survey the horizon, where, beyond the enemy 
lines, some tall smoking chimneys stand out. 
For whom are these factories working ? With his 
curved hand the old man is pushing the flour 

194 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

into the sack ; then he comes up to me and looks 
out towards the distance. He too, perhaps, is 
asking himself the same question. His mill is 
working, the factories are working. What does 
that mean ? His perplexity finds expression in such 
an unexpected question that I stand stupefied : 

" And the war ? Is it still going on ? " 

Imprisoned in his impenetrable deafness, the 
old miller hears nothing of the intermittent can- 
nonade with which is mingled the resounding 
boom of the big guns and the sharp, rapid volleys 
of the light artillery and the anti-aircraft guns ; 
nor does he hear the rifles of the Scotchmen, nor 
the vicious smacks of the machine-guns at the base 
of the hills. When I have recovered from my amaze- 
ment, I articulate distinctly, syllable by syllable : 
' Yes, certainly it is still going on ! " 

He had evidently hoped for a different reply, 
for his eyes grow melancholy and his lips curve in 
a grimace of disapproval ; he gives a long shrug. 
His gnarled hand pushes the corn on to the smooth 
plank of the scuttle. Resigned to the present 
and perturbed for the future, the old man inquires 
again : 

" And what do you think about it ? Will they 
go away soon ? " 

195 N 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

The question is almost in the tone of a prayer ; 
it expresses at once a fear and a hope. His face 
which, a moment ago, was so placid now wears 
an expression of suffering. He turns round, 
glances at the clack, which is working away in- 
defatigably, pushes into the sack another handful 
of the warm corn which was lingering on the 
scuttle, and his eyes look at me questioningly. 
There is something very moving in the anxiety 
of this old miller pursuing his peaceful occupa- 
tion. Why should not he, too, have an experience 
of that confidence in the final issue, which is 
shared by everyone else here, from the commander- 
in-chief to the soldier in the trenches ? 

With all the conviction that I can put into the 
words I answer him : 

" Yes, they will be going away soon — soon ! " 

And we all know that the old miller will not 
be disappointed. 



196 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 



XII 

At The Front 

HP HE clouds have now disappeared from the 
sky, and the mists have lifted from the 
horizon. 

" You are lucky ! I really think I have never 
seen the weather so clear," says the general. 

As far as the eye can see we can distinguish 
now the smallest objects — clumps of trees, vil- 
lages, farms, roads, railways, canals. It is like 
a map spread out beneath our eyes, and, with 
field-glasses, we can extend it beyond the German 
lines. 

If it were not for the fact that, after an 
interval of calm, the guns are again booming 
vigorously, there would be nothing to indicate 
that for months this country has been the scene 
of vast and desperate conflicts. 

It is a war of the blind, an invisible war, a 
war of concealment, disguise, of digging and 
burrowing. Everything which I have encoun- 
tered along the roads — all the troops, the material, 

197 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

the convoys — are so effectively hidden that, from 
the slight elevation on which I am standing, I 
can no longer distinguish anything. The batteries 
of artillery which I visited, no matter what their 
size, have also disappeared. 

And my thoughts revert once again to the 
great pictures at Versailles, on which the artist 
has been able to depict the two belligerent armies 
under the eyes of the commander and his staff, 
who are curvetting in the foreground. 

The country which stretches beneath our eyes 
has been the scene of many battles, from the time 
of halberds and arquebuses, from Philip Augustus 
down to Louis XIV. and Napoleon. The oppo- 
nents met as though by common consent and 
they engaged in battle as if it were a game of 
chess, in which they were careful to observe the 
rules of the game. 

I venture to make the following observation 
to the general : 

" If we were a hundred years younger," I say 
to him, " you would be on this hill, surrounded 
by your aides-de-camp and couriers, your troops 
would be drawn up beneath your eye, your re- 
serves protected by clumps of trees ; not a vestige 
of the operations would escape you, and night 

198 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

would put an end to the conflict, with victory 
for one of the adversaries. Now, everything is 
organised from a distance ; the cannon aim at 
targets which are invisible to the gunners, motor- 
cars have replaced the prancing horses, the tele- 
phone has replaced the courier. We no longer 
see war ; we hear it, and the battle continues for 
weeks and months. 

"To be sure, we are far from the time when 
a man bowed to his adversary and begged him to 
shoot first,' ' agrees the general, with a smile and 
a merry twinkle in his eye. "It is no longer 
a war of gentlemen, no longer an honourable 
match in which the stronger triumphs by honest 
means. We have learnt to be prepared for any- 
thing from an enemy who does not revolt from 
any kind of infamy, and whom no umpire can dis- 
qualify. Bah ! " he adds. " One can get the 
better of any braggart." 

"It is at your own risk," I am told, when 
I receive permission to visit the trenches. 

I am given an identification disc, by which I 
may be identified in case I should be killed. 
I am quite unconcerned with regard to the risk, 
and I do not believe the expedition to be very 
perilous. 

199 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

" Take this too," and I am handed a little 
rectangular packet wrapped in grey canvas ; it 
is a packet containing medical appliances, with 
instructions how to use them. This time I burst 
out laughing. 

" While you are over there," I am told with 
perfect seriousness, " there is nothing to ensure 
that a mine will not burst under your feet, or 
that the enemy will not send a hail of shells to 

prepare the way for an attack. Besides, at X , 

you will only be thirty yards away from the 
Germans, and that is within the reach of occasional 
hand-grenades and bombs." 

Very possibly, but I will not abandon my 
project. I fasten the disc round my neck, I put 
the packet in my pocket, and I settle myself in 
the motor. " En route ! " First of all, we go to 
the headquarters of the — th Army to obtain the 
necessary permits and authorisations. The general 
in command of this army is tall and vigorous, 
with keen eyes which look you full in the face, 
a pleasant manner of speaking, and a ready laugh ; 
his radiant good humour is very attractive. 

"I am going to send you in the direction of 
Neuve Chapelle," he says. 

At this name, I prick up my ears. I do not 
200 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

forget that, among other instructions to be ob- 
served during my visit, is the recommendation 
that I should not engage in any indiscreet con- 
versation with the officers or soldiers. But with a 
general commanding an army ? I venture to speak 
of the operations which took place in this sector. 
The English Press has been exhibiting a certain 
nervousness on this subject, but, without much 
pressing, the general begins to relate what hap- 
pened. It is an amplification, and at the same 
time a confirmation, of the sober accounts pub- 
lished by the military authorities. I listen with 
passionate attention, and I follow, on the maps 
and plans pinned to the walls, the developments 
of the struggle. In spite of a set-back, the 
British troops carried the position in an hour and 
a half, although the resistance had been expected 
to last a day, and they preserved it in spite of 
ferocious counter-attacks. 

Nothing could be more fascinating than this 
description, with its abundance of illuminating 
details. For the last few moments, the dis- 
tinguished staff officer, whose duty it is to 
keep an eye on journalists, has been exhibiting 
a certain alarm. He is uneasy at the pre- 
ciseness of the general's description ; he respect- 



201 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

fully ventures a humorous remark on the brazen 
curiosity of the representatives of the Press. The 
general at once perceives the allusion ; he laughs 
heartily at the officer's apprehensions, and replies 
good-naturedly that he trusts to the- discern- 
ment of his auditors to keep silence concerning 
anything which might afford information to the 
enemy. 

" And after all, my dear fellow," he says, 
" the censorship is not there for nothing ! " 

He finishes his explanations, which bring me 
to this conclusion : that the English generals and 
their staffs are equal to their laborious task, and 
that the English soldier is a fighter of indomitable 
courage, whom the enemy fear to such a degree 
that they reserved for him their first experiment 
with asphyxiating gas. 

A brief " Thank you," a hand-clasp, and we 
are in the street. 

" Pop in ! Pop in quickly ! " urges the 
officer, who is always anxious not to lose a 
moment. 

And we are soon speeding along, passing con- 
voys and troops and traversing innumerable can- 
tonments. At a certain point we have to leave 
the motor, which is carefully concealed with a 

202 



A I RENCH M ' 0BSERVA1 [ON 

v'u ■// to a possible visif ol ny aeroplai 

through roads furrowed with ruts, and pal 

which the English - wy. 

They could only reach them at night, and tl 
by a roundabout way along ;i path marked out 
by boards planted obliquely in the gro 

ad painted white k be visible 

d in the darkness, Thena carefully pn 

Uj the ad 

t.ren' ' 

I v a certain i - the old trend] I 
in the ditch by tin 

rained away by an It 

in iront ui U t OHCe • 

oi ashes which are all that 
that remained having bei 
the trencbe 
in mod When the farmet 
been r- ■ the in 

aU that be will find oi his 

- 

dilapi'k- oi a thl 

A httle further on ase 8m 

dwelling, the horn/; oi 

aw 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

Some pieces of wire fastened to rotten and half- 
overturned posts still mark the boundaries of a 
garden in which the shells have made much havoc ; 
only one of the bee-hives is still standing, but 
the bees have ceased to visit it. Of the dwelling 
itself nothing remains : the fire has destroyed it 
entirely ; but we can see the place where the cellar 
used to be. Almost buried under some remains of 
half-burnt thatch, a heap of potatoes is rotting 
and germinating in the fine rain ; they are the 
winter store of the labourer who has taken refuge 
Heaven knows where. He must have owned a 
cow or two also, which his wife attended to in ad- 
dition to her household tasks and the care of her 
children, for a skimmer is lying overturned under 
the rubbish, by the side of a headless wooden horse. 
In the corner is a weighing-machine which does 
not seem to have suffered at all. 

We walk for a long time in these dismantled 
trenches, in which there still remain objects of all 
kinds, left behind after the attack which advanced 
the front by several miles ; there are empty 
cartridge cases, pouches, broken bayonets, frag- 
ments of shells, dirty rags which were perhaps 
stained with blood. There are several telephone 
wires, fastened to poles or to the trunks of trees, 

204 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

which have often been stripped of their branches 
and splintered and pollarded by the machine-guns. 
A grave and silent Indian draws his hand along 
one of these wires, to which he affixes, from time 
to time, a distinctive sign, which he draws out 
of a deep pouch ; a little while after a European 
soldier proceeds to make a similar inspection of 
another wire. 

Sometimes we encounter entrenchments of earth 
and turf, forming veritable fortresses ; some of 
the occupants are cooking a meal, while others 
are sleeping in shelters filled with straw. At in- 
tervals, in front of loopholes at which the rifle is 
always held in readiness, there are sentinels on 
guard by the side of the formidable machine- 
guns. Sacks of earth are heaped in front of and 
above the metal shield protecting the loop-hole. 
The shield has an opening for the barrel of the 
gun, which is closed by means of a drop like that 
over a keyhole. In front of this hole, through 
which one of the enemy's bullets occasionally 
penetrates, the sentinel stands, grave and atten- 
tive, and he scarcely turns round as we pass. 
His patient immobility during the whole days 
when nothing happens reminds me of the resigned 
vigilance of an angler. 

205 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

Like everyone else, the Englishman likes to 
amuse himself. If British humour differs from our 
French joviality, it none the less conduces to 
laughter, and our friends are never slow to enjoy 
a good jest, a practical joke, as they say. 

For instance, I was told of an exploit accom- 
plished on the ist of April by a British aviator 
as fearless as he was skilful. He had to perform 
on that day a series of daring reconnoitres, 
thanks to which he was able to furnish the staff 
with information concerning the movements of 
the enemy's army corps. When he sets off, he is 
observed to place in his machine a football, well 
blown out and firmly tied in its leather envelope. 
To the pleasantries of his colleagues he only replies 
with a knowing smile. 

When he returns from his excursion, he pre- 
pares to fly over an important enemy encamp- 
ment which he had already taken note of in the 
course of the previous days. Arrived at a con- 
venient distance, he makes a lightning descent 
and, at a given moment, drops the football over 
the edge of his machine, re-ascends swiftly, and 
gains a safe height from which he observes the 
effect produced. 

Continuing its descent, the football falls in 
206 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

the very middle of the camp, but, instead of 
exploding with a crash, it begins to re-ascend 
noiselessly towards the sky, a phenomenon which 
fills the Boches with amazement. This prodigious 
bomb has rebounded to such a height that it can 
scarcely be distinguished, but lo ! it begins to 
descend once more, touches the ground, rebounds 
several hundred feet, re-descends and rebounds 
in a series of extravagant leaps ; it is driven this 
way and that, according to the conformation of 
the ground, it leaps forward, it comes back again, 
and the amazement of the Boches is transformed 
into panic. In a frenzied horde, they flee in all 
directions, they jostle one another, they stumble, 
they fall ; the horses join in the panic, men and 
beasts in their terror overturn cooking-pots and 
tents ; the encampment is a scene of hopeless 
disorder, whilst the gambols of the football be- 
come slower and slower and finally cease. Then, 
a heroic Boche ventures to go up and examine 
this jumping bomb. Cautiously, revolver in hand, 
he advances towards it, sheltering himself behind 
anything which might afford him protection. At 
a distance of twenty paces, he fires ! His last 
ball hits the mark and produces a violent explo- 
sion. All throw themselves face downwards, but 

207 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

the fragments of the projectile in their turn must 
have jumped very high and have lost themselves 
in the upper air, for they do not return to the 
ground. It is becoming more and more amazing ! 
When at length the bolder spirits make up their 
minds to approach, they find on the ground a few 
fragments of leather, to one of which is still at- 
tached a parchment label bearing the words : 
" April fool, ist April, 1916. God strafe Eng- 
land ! " 

It was only a sham, and yet how thrilling it 
was ! Outside the little town, the fields have been 
transformed into an exercising ground. There are 
streams to cross, clumps of trees in which to take 
shelter, huts in ruins in which to entrench, all the 
various peculiarities which are liable to be encoun- 
tered in this siege war. Trenches have been dug, 
parapets have been raised, and the troops are 
practising at attacks and counter-attacks, just 
as they are being practised only a few miles away 
against the actual enemy. 

I gladly accept the proposal of the general 
that I should be present at a practice, since it is 
probable — at least, so he hopes — that the enemy 
will not attack the front trenches while I am there. 
At first I am shown the various contrivances 

208 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

employed, in addition to the guns, for the purpose 
of preparing an offensive. An artillery lieutenant, 
who looks not more than eighteen years of age, ex- 
plains the action and the manipulation of mortars, 
bomb-throwers, projectiles of all sizes, grenades 
of all patterns — in short, the most unheard-of 
pyrotechnic devices. Of these projectiles, the 
majority are manufactured here, on the spot, out 
of jam-tins charged with an explosive, and furnished 
with a wick which can be lighted at a cigarette. 

" Some of these bombs," says the general, 
" are intended to produce what is called a moral 
effect." He gives instructions for one to be ex- 
perimented with then and there. The lieutenant 
hurls it vigorously ; the bomb explodes with an 
infernal crash ; it is, indeed, appalling ; it seems 
to torture one's whole organism. I can very 
well imagine that, after a day of that music, I 
should gladly accept the hospitality of the regi- 
mental doctor in his tranquil refuge for those put 
out of action. I try the weight of the brass and 
bronze grenades ; they are a species of cannon 
ball, marked with grooves which facilitate their 
explosion into small fragments. Others, in the 
form of a club, have a wooden handle which is used 
for throwing them ; at the end of these are fixed 

209 o 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

two stout strips of cloth, two fingers broad, which 
ensure that they fall with the big end downwards 
and do not fail to explode. And this young 
lieutenant, pink and fresh, graceful and smart 
in his neat uniform, describes in his refined voice 
the various advantages of these dangerous objects, 
which the men carry in large pouches attached 
to their belts. 

After the theory comes the demonstration. 
The men take up their positions, and we place 
ourselves behind a rampart of earth, from which 
we shall have a view of the whole spectacle. The 
enemy trench is copiously sprinkled with bombs 
and grenades. Following the example of the 
officers, I stop up my ears, for this tremendous 
uproar shakes the drum of my ear as if it would 
break it. All kinds of explosions are mixed to- 
gether ; the smoke is constantly broken with 
flashes. Fragments of earth and turf fly in all 
directions. It seems as if nothing could with- 
stand it. I imagine a horrible devastation and 
destruction, and not without anguish of heart I 
think that our men, too, have sometimes to endure 
a similar deluge. The general soothes me by 
assuring me that all this hurly-burly produces a 
great deal more noise than damage. 

210 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

I shall have occasion to verify this fact the 

next day at X , when I visit the wounded 

who have been brought away from a trench which 
was attacked in this fashion by the enemy. These 
unfortunate men appear to be hopelessly disfigured ; 
covered as they are with mud and dirt, their faces 
seem no longer human ; their heads are bathed, 
they are washed, and it is a relief to discover 
that most of the injuries are only superficial. The 
major even informs me that a great many of 
them are not to be sent away any further, and 
that, if it were not for the fact that they are 
terribly stupefied with the noise, they would 
be fit to rejoin their company at the end of a 
few days. 

It is quite clear that this fearful racket, these 
formidable explosions produced by such diminu- 
tive implements, must so dumbfound, stupefy and 
bewilder the enemy as to render him incapable of 
resistance. And while the bombs are bursting, 
the men hurl themselves forward and jump into 
the trench which has thus been prepared. They 
consolidate their position, hurl a fresh shower of 
projectiles into the next trench, penetrate into 
that, and thus seize the whole position, whilst a 
portion of their number oppose the enemy who have 

211 O 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

left their second line trenches and are advancing 
rapidly to the rescue. The crack of the guns is 
incessant, and the enemy is held in check. The 
capture of this trench has been effected without 
losses, but it will be readily conceived, from the 
above description, that it needs some resolution 
and courage to attack and to seize such defences. 

With our ears still humming, we go back to 
the little town, which must have been very pro- 
sperous before the war. The principal street is 
very wide, bordered with fine trees, and the fronts 
of the houses are very elegant — or rather were once 
elegant, for they have suffered considerably from 
the bombardment ; not a single pane left in the 
windows, walls broken in, gables shattered, while 
here and there on the roadway traces of holes 
recently stopped up mark where the enemy's 
" saucepans " have fallen. 

It is at the other end of the town, round the 
church, that the damage is most considerable. 
The Boche gunners made the belfry their target, 
and they appear to have been lavish of projectiles. 
Owing to the distance, they used their big guns, 
and a hole which has not yet been filled up, just 
in front of the church porch, testifies that the 
shells were of formidable proportions. The nave 

212 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

and transept have collapsed, but the tower is 
still standing, and although a shell has pierced 
the central rose window, it still supports the 
belfry, on the summit of which the weather-cock 
continues to turn in the wind. At irregular 
intervals a few shells continue to be aimed at 
the obstinate spire, but they do not succeed in 
hitting it. It is the neighbouring houses which 
suffer. 

They were houses of two and three storeys, to 
judge by the few carcases which are still standing, 
and the fragments of furniture indicate that they 
were not inhabited by poor people. The roofs 
and floors have fallen in, and, in many cases, the 
walls have collapsed on top of them ; some of the 
beams have got jammed so as to form buttresses 
which have protected the corner of a dining-room, 
where the sideboards are now covered with dust, or 
a bedroom where the bed-clothes are soaked by 
the rain that has filtered through the coating of 
rubbish ; the beds still have their coverings and 
pillows ; here and there, on the remnants of the 
walls, there still hang pictures, portraits, a holy 
water vase, with twigs of box ; on the second 
storey, a marble chimney remains intact against the 
wall and still supports a clock, candlesticks, vases, 

213 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

and various knick-knacks. In a kitchen, some of 
the ruins have crushed the saucepans on the 
stove, and on the sink there is some plate and some 
unwashed crockery. It is a heart-breaking sight. 
These homes have been hurriedly abandoned. The 
unfortunate inhabitants have been obliged to take 
flight at a moment's notice, taking with them 
just what they could lay their hands on in the first 
shock of the alarm — sometimes costly, but often 
strangely useless, articles, as was the case with 
those refugees whom I encountered in La Brie in 
August, 1 914, grasping a bundle of umbrellas 
tied together, or an empty cage, or pushing a 
child's perambulator filled with the most incon- 
gruous objects — a saw, a basket for holding 
bottles, some plates, a stool ! 

" We had better not stay here," advises the 
general. " It's not a very healthy place." 

But at this moment I perceive, about fifty 
yards off, some smoke mounting straight up in the 
rain ; it comes from a chimney projecting slightly 
above the summit of a roof, the slates of which 
are almost all broken. I point out my discovery 
to the general. 

" Someone is living there ! I must go and look 
at it." 

214 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

" Better not," says the general, who, however, 
confines his opposition to giving me this warning. 
He advises me to return as soon as possible to 
rejoin the party, which is turning back, and I 
cross the open space, making a zigzag to avoid the 
excavations of the shells. 

I arrive in front of a narrow house ; it is just 
the width of its one window and door, with a 
single storey and a low garret. Its modest size 
has saved it from a more complete destruction. 
On each side it is supported by more opulent 
dwellings, which have been hit by the shells and 
have collapsed. A chaos of ruins now props up 
this hut, the front of which, towards the top, 
has been perforated by fragments of shell. A 
beam from the neighbouring house has fallen 
across the door and supports a pile of fragments 
of walls and floors which form a barricade. The 
shutters of the narrow window have been re- 
paired and strengthened with thick pieces of 
boards, and this work is of recent date, for 
the heads of the nails have scarcely commenced 
to rust. 

I knock at this window several times. No 
one replies. I take up half a brick and knock 
louder still. Nothing. I try again. A hoarse 

215 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

voice, half-muffled, as though it were ascending 
from a cellar, cries : 
" Who's there ? " 

" Someone who would like to speak with you." 
" Who ? " 

'' You will see. It is not a Boche. Do not 
be uneasy." 

In reply, I hear only an " Ah ! " uttered in 
a tone of mingled indifference, incredulity and 
resignation, with a hint of astonishment. Then, 
nothing more. I call again : 
" Which way can I enter ? " 
"I am coming ! " growls the harsh voice. 
The good man does not hurry himself, but I 
have made up my mind to be patient ! All at 
once, on the site of the neighbouring house, under 
a kind of lean-to formed by some fallen rafters, a 
head appears ; a man ascends, comes towards me, 
and, without further preamble, asks me this 
question : 

" What do you want me for ? " 
I apologise for having disturbed him, and I 
indicate my desire to know the impressions of the 
only inhabitant who has stayed in his house under 
the threat of a destruction the terrible marks of 
which are before my eyes. 

216 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

" I stayed in my house," replies the man 
briefly, and he buries his two hands in the huge 
pocket of a coarse blue apron. 

At first he stares at me fixedly, with a slow, 
stupefied gaze : not a feature of his face moves ; 
his lips are covered with a thick, almost white, 
moustache, his abundant hair is black on the 
top of the head and turning grey at the temples. 
When he has examined me sufficiently, he turns 
away his eyes slightly and appears to be con- 
templating a corner of the square which the fire 
has left almost bare. 

" You have not left the country since the 
war ? " 

" No, I stayed in my house." And he gazes 
mournfully at his hovel. 

" But your neighbours have all gone ? " 
" They had to ; the shells were falling on their 
houses. But I — I stayed in my house." 

" During the bombardment, where did you 
shelter yourself ? " 

" In my house, to be sure ! " 
" But you ran the risk of its falling on top 
of you . . . You risked your life by staying 
there ! " 

" What else should I do ? It is my house ! " 
217 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

His house ! This refrain is disconcerting, and 
I fear that I shall not be able to extract any- 
thing else from this unfortunate man. One more 
try, however : 

"It is yours, this house ? It belongs to 
you ? " 

" Oh, yes. It is mine ; it is my house." 
" I see . . . And what do you do ? " 
" Why, I stay in my house." 
My question was badly expressed; I put it 
more precisely : 

" What is your trade ? " 
" My trade ? I am a shoemaker." 
Possibly this shoemaker was talkative before 
the war. In that case, he has lost all trace of it ; 
the months during which he has lived alone " in 
his house " have made him laconic, and have 
strangely limited the field of his ideas. Surrounded 
with burnings and dilapidations and terrific ex- 
plosions, the shoemaker does not seem to have 
succeeded in convincing himself that, in the midst 
of this fearful devastation, he and his house have 
been spared. As if by a miracle, they are the sole 
survivors of this disaster, and he will not leave 
" his house " as long as it stands upright, as long 
as it can afford him shelter. The war will end 

218 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

at last, and the diaphanous smoke mounting up 
towards the sky from the chimney of this little 
house seems to me like the symbol of an uncon- 
querable hope — the hope that the ruins will be 
restored, that the homes will live again, that 
peace will be re-established, and just as the shoe- 
maker repeats persistently : " It is my house/ ' 
so we shall all say, indomitably : " It is our 
France ! " 

Once again I obtain permission to visit the 
trenches — two whole days at the extreme edge 
of the front, in the region where the Germans are 
making desperate efforts to break the English 
lines. In spite of their surprise attacks with 
asphyxiating gas, which procured them a temporary 
advantage, their efforts are in vain, their offensive 
is powerless. " They shall not pass ! " That is 
the certainty that one feels after having seen, seen 
with one's own eyes, the strength of the British 
lines, the enthusiasm of the troops, and the firmness 
of their moral. 

Now we are going down there, " somewhere in 
Belgium," and our tour will be interrupted with 
several halts. 

After crossing a village of old grey houses, we 
come out in a new quarter in front of the station. 

219 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

A wide bridge spans the canal, along which is 
passing a squat-looking tug, doubtless requisi- 
tioned by our Allies, since a vast Union Jack, the 
British flag, is flying at the stern. On the edge of 
the canal, a file of motor ambulances are drawn 
up. They have brought the wounded to the 
depot installed in a vast and recently-constructed 
factory. An officer belonging to the sanitary 
department shows us the interior arrangements of 
these vehicles, which are of very various makes and 
patterns. These have been in use since the be- 
ginning of the campaign, and they have under- 
gone certain modifications, practice having revealed 
inconveniences which theory had not foreseen. 
The improvements suggested by experience are 
now systematically introduced into the new 
cars. Both as a whole and in every detail, 
the most recent cars are perfect ; they are 
most admirably adapted for their purpose as 
ambulances. 

This skill in adaptation is also exhibited in 
all the details of the depot for the wounded, or- 
ganised in the neighbouring factory by a distin- 
guished major. The many-coloured ribbons which 
discreetly adorn his khaki jacket indicate that 
this is not his first campaign ; in fact, the hair of 

220 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

this major (an Irishman) has turned white in 
harness, and he has seen service in India and South 
Africa, where, he says, he was far from having at 
his disposal the manifold resources afforded by our 
northern provinces. However, as a result of the 
difficulties which he had to overcome in that 
distant country, he has acquired ingenuity and 
resource and despises nothing that can be turned 
to account. For example, at the head of each 
stretcher-bed is a bedside table, very skilfully 
contrived out of the boards of old chests. Every- 
where there are little things which testify to an 
astonishing ingenuity. This officer, aided by a 
staff as devoted as himself, has succeeded in ac- 
complishing a great deal with scanty materials, 
although the authorities do not let him want for 
anything. 

Yonder, behind a partition of stretched canvas 
is a reading-room, with books, reviews, news- 
papers, writing materials, and even a piano, on 
which, without a moment's intermission, a soldier 
is playing various pieces, or perhaps he is im- 
provising. Only the cases of sickness or slight 
wounds are brought to this establishment ; a large 
number of these men are merely suffering from 
shock, from the nervous depression resulting 

221 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

from a battle, from a prolonged stay in the 
trenches, amid the deafening explosions of the 
mines and shells. A few days' rest in this 
clean, cheerful, well-lit hospital will suffice to 
put them right, and they will ask of their 
own accord to rejoin their comrades, to go back 
to the fighting, since it was for that they 
enlisted. 

Those who have the use of their limbs are 
employed on useful tasks, though they do not 
continue these to the point of fatigue ; but the 
days spent in idleness are long, and work is the 
best cure for prostration and melancholy. 

" This incessant coming and going of patients 
must entail a good deal of complicated organisa- 
tion," I say to the major. " I am appalled at the 
idea of the number of letters, accounts, auditings, 
inventories, lists, files and registers that you 
must have to keep up to date. I should be 
interested to see your offices." 

" We shall pass there presently. I will show 
them to you," replies the major, leading the way 
into the workroom of the hairdressers and chiro- 
podists, who are kept very busy attending to 
a constant stream of customers, for the men are 
very particular about being closely shorn and 

222 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

shaved, and, as his feet are as useful to a soldier as 
his head, they too are looked after with equal care. 

" Ah ! Here are the offices," says the major, 
and he pushes a little door, opening into two rooms 
of moderate size, in which three men are busily 
employed at some deal tables. " That is all." 

" We simplify," remarks the major briefly. 
"It is very necessary. Our volunteers enlist for 
active service and not for sedentary posts . . . 
There is no time for attending to accumulations 
of papers." 

"It is perfect; but how do you manage about 
the supplies of materials, medicines, clothing, 
food, bedding, which must be required for the 
hundreds of men who pass through your depot ? " 

" I give large orders at a time. I am allowed 
initiative and comparative autonomy. I make the 
best arrangements I can ; every one does his bit 
and you see the result." 

And I notice that every one is really " doing 
his bit," that every one is helping in a spirit of 
order and goodwill, so that the whole may 
work smoothly and efficiently. No bureaucratic 
formalities ; no piles of papers ; abolition of all the 
machinery that can be dispensed with. Every- 
thing here is arranged with a view to the end 

223 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

to be attained. This major is very stout in 
figure, but he is active and nimble, and his 
whole personality reveals the practical man, 
the energetic and indefatigable organiser, always 
ready to take a judicious initiative which will 
not be discouraged by any clumsy administrative 
intervention. 

I congratulate him as I take my leave, but 
some ambulances are entering the spacious court 
and already he has ceased to listen to me. 

What is the front exactly ? The definition 
is more or less elastic, but we shall use the word 
here in its restricted sense. First of all, imagine 
a long strip of territory extending from Alsace to 
Nieuport, along the middle line of which the parallel 
lines of the French and German trenches extend 
like a double seam. By the front is meant the 
line of French and British trenches against which 
the enemy has been bruising himself and ex- 
hausting himself so long. The outer edges of 
this ribbon are determined by the extreme limit 
attained on our side by the enemy shells, and, 
beyond the German trenches, by the range of our 
artillery. 

This width may sometimes be temporarily 
extended by the hazardous and ineffectual trips 

224 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

of the enemy aeroplanes and Zeppelins, as a re- 
sult of which the most peaceful inhabitants of 
Paris and London have several times had the 
honour of being " at the front " — or by long- 
distance bombardments ; for instance, on the oc- 
casion when we dropped several shells on the 
forts at Metz. 

On the whole, the front is the strip of terri- 
tory in which one is exposed to shell-fire. There 
is no apparent demarcation to warn you that 
you are passing into the danger zone. Only 
the cavities in the fields and on the road and 
the burnt and dilapidated houses indicate that 
the " saucepans " sometimes fall in this neigh- 
bourhood. 

It is in this zone that I have the impression 
that something is going on. I leave the motor- 
car for some hours, return to it, leave it again, 
and in this way I traverse the devastated region, 
from village to farm, from fort to trench, whilst 
the sonorous voice of the guns thunders sometimes 
far off, sometimes near. I hear them, but I can- 
not see them. Frequently I passed in front of 
batteries without guessing that they were so near. 
It is impossible to find them without a guide, 
unless a sudden activity reveals their presence. 

225 p 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

The guns are admirably placed, crouching in their 
holes in an attitude of perfect readiness. With 
throats stretched straight towards the enemy, 
with their mechanism oiled, polished and beauti- 
fully kept, they seem like some complex living 
organisms enjoying the perfect exercise of their 
functions. Resting on their light wheels, propped 
on the carriage, they resemble living creatures, 
at once fragile and robust ; they inspire a sense 
of confidence and sympathy, though, at the same 
time, one feels them to be formidable and merci- 
less for the enemy as soon as they set to work. 
Seeing them like this, I can understand the peculiar 
affection which their gunners feel for them, like 
the affection which an engineer feels for his loco- 
motive, and I understand it better still when all 
at once the telephone operator transmits a message 
from the observation officer. The officer gives a 
few brief orders ; promptly, but without haste, the 
men approach the guns, the gunner instals himself 
on the seat fixed to the carriage, and manipulates 
his cranks and levers. Now the gun is really 
living ; it is wonderful to see how supple it is, how 
docile, how powerful and yet how tranquil. The 
tangent sight is regulated. The breech closes 
noiselessly on the shell, which has been snapped 

226 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

up, swallowed without greediness ; I do not know 
why I think of a well-bred person swallowing a 
pill without a grimace, without any ugly smacking 
of the lips, without any affectation, like an epicure 
consuming a succulent dish which will melt in his 
mouth. 

All stop up their ears ; the gunner, with a 
rapid gesture, pulls a string, without any more 
effort than if it were the click of an instantaneous 
photograph. At the same moment, the explo- 
sion shakes me from head to foot ; I have scarcely 
time to see the sudden convulsion, the violent 
leap backwards, the terrible recoil, in order the 
better to deal the mortal blow, and, after this 
fearful shock, the slender delicate trunk re-adjusts 
itself on its powerful haunches with a glide as 
slow and gentle as a caress. The gun has 
resumed its peaceful posture on the carriage ; 
then two, three, four times, according to the 
indications of the observation officer, it thrusts 
forth its throat and belches its deadly missile ; and 
again it is silent, ready to respond to a new 
invitation with the same docile and formidable 
tranquillity. 

By instinct as well as by order, the soldier 
in the firing line mistrusts the civilian. I do not 

227 P 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

blame him for this mistrust, although it is hardly 
probable that a spy would incur the suspicion 
attached to civilian clothes when he has so many 
facilities for attiring himself in khaki. However 
that may be, I have noticed several times that 
any stranger is stopped and questioned without 
any hesitation. 

I was stopped in this way twice in succession, 
on the same day, in the space of a few minutes. 

I had retraced my steps as far as the motor 
in order to fetch a pair of field-glasses which I 
had left in it. I lingered somewhat, so that my 
companions had gone on in front under the 
conduct of the staff officers, whose caps and 
collars, with their scarlet trimmings, were our 
guarantee. The muddy road wound through the 
plain ; thickets and hedges enclosing gardens, 
roofless huts and dilapidated farms cut off the 
view. The place is deserted, but twenty feet 
in front of me a rough cart emerges from a cross- 
road. It is drawn by a sturdy English horse, 
one of those powerful draught horses, with large 
shoes and fetlocks adorned with long tufts. A 
short thick-set Tommy is leading it by the bridle. 
Four soldiers, also short and thick-set, follow 
behind, and they seem very astonished to see me. 

228 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

My motor-cap, my spats and my muddy boots 
are not a uniform, and neither is the wide great- 
coat which protects me from the frequent showers, 
and the sleeve of which conceals my armlet. My 
whole attire reveals one of those civilians to whom 
this sacred zone is forbidden ground. These men 
evidently have not seen the group which pre- 
ceded me. The Tommy stops his horse and comes 
resolutely towards me, and, in the tone of one 
who is sure of a good haul and is rejoicing 
somewhat prematurely at having captured a too 
daring spy, he addresses me : 

" Hi, there ! Tell me, I am terribly curious 
to know what has brought you here." 

He appears prepared to receive with absolute 
incredulity the lying explanations which he is 
expecting. I content myself with replying : 

" Temporarily on active service," which is the 
actual phrase inscribed on the pass which was 
presented to me at headquarters, and which 
I hasten to exhibit, together with the special 
authorisation to visit this region with which I 
was furnished. 

" Excuse me," says the vigilant carter politely, 
and he bows and takes up the bridle again. 

I hasten my steps, reflecting that the rest 
229 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

of the party must have got still further ahead of 
me during this colloquy. Two hundred yards 
further on, a large farm has fared rather badly. 
A projectile has destroyed the right side of the 
gate and smashed to pieces a cart sheltered under 
the portico. The dove-cot is only a heap of 
bricks ; most of the farm buildings have been 
mutilated, and the cracked walls are threatening 
to collapse. By the side of the farm, a dwelling 
house constructed on a basement is no less 
damaged, although it is sheltered by a thicket 
which forms a screen between it and the enemy. 
But these tall trees only served as a target for the 
Germans, who succeeded in pollarding them, 
fearing that they might be used as a post of ob- 
servation. For all this bit of country is flat, and 
I cannot help feeling that a man would need to 
be strangely attached to his bit of soil in order 
to build a house of this style for himself in a 
situation so inexorably devoid of picturesqueness. 
Flanking the house, a tower has been decapitated 
of the belfry or terrace which surmounted it, and 
from which it must have been possible to see 
a long way, although no doubt no one ever had the 
curiosity to ascend it. An iron railing on a stone 
base surrounds a flower garden with two clumps 

230 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

of shrubs, in the midst of which some laburnum 
trees display their yellow tassels. The front of 
the house is gashed with a rent which must have 
been produced by a shell entering slantwise, and 
a wistaria, partly torn from its support and 
hanging down over the door, is still flowering. 
On the first floor, the rags of some crimson 
curtains hang down through the windows, which 
have lost all their panes. Through a bay 
window on the ground floor, I can see a large 
sideboard overturned in the midst of a litter 
of plate. The chandelier has fallen down, and 
the round table has been broken away from its 
foot, and has capsized against a broken sewing- 
machine. 

Suddenly I hear voices and the sound of a pump- 
handle. I advance a few steps, and I see two 
English soldiers, who are utterly amazed, though 
not at all disconcerted, at my appearance. Con- 
cluding that I cannot have fallen from the clouds, 
one of them hastens to ask me, in no very cordial 
tone, where I have come from. As the rain has 
now ceased, I remove my cloak, thereby revealing 
the armlet which adorns my arm. This band is 
of the same shade of green as the cover of a 
billiard table, and on it are embroidered these 

231 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

two words : " War corpt.," with scarcely any 
space between them, so that the whole, on 
account of the bold abbreviation of " correspon- 
dent " into "corpt.," has the appearance of some 
Germanic word, and at once arouses the sus- 
picion of the soldier. I hold out my arm, re- 
peating the phrase, " Temporarily on active 
service." But the soldier is not so easily 
satisfied. 

" What does that mean ? " he asks, pointing 
to my armlet. I explain : 

" War correspondent." 

His suspicion is still awake ; he repeats the 
two words in an incredulous tone, then retires 
a couple of steps and calls to someone who is hidden 
from me by the gable of the house. It is a non- 
commissioned officer, who comes forward ; on his 
shoulder is a sociable little cat which has refused 
to forsake its bombarded dwelling, and his head 
is bent down towards it. 

I no longer cherish any illusions concerning 
the effectiveness of the armlet, and, anxious not 
to prolong an interview which is delaying me, 
I produce the passes, duly stamped and initialled, 
and I hand them to the newcomer, who examines 
them. He gives them back to me almost irarae- 

232 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

diately, and, turning to his subordinate, he declares 
reassuringly : 

" It's all right," and he raises his hand to his 
cap and makes a rapid salute, whilst the cat 
arches its back and rubs its head against the 
sergeant's ear. 



233 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

XXIII 

In the Trenches 
AX7E have to cross a series of fields and meadows 
which are wholly exposed to the German 
observation officers. We cross them in single file at 
a distance of fifty yards from one another. The 
grass is green and abundant, but the ground is so 
soaked that our feet sink in it to the ankles, and 
it requires an effort to pull them out again. There 
could be no question of running in such a bog as 
this, and still less of making paths, since these 
would soon be transformed into streams. Here 
and there the water covers the surface, and, in 
order to prevent people from sinking in, an ex- 
tempore pavement has been made by scattering 
bricks and rubbish, on which one risks spraining 
one's ankle at every step. At the same time, 
walking is less difficult on this track, and we get 
along more quickly unhampered by the flip-flop 
of our muddy soles. 

We are making for a wood occupied by the 
British troops, round which bends the line of the 
trenches. But the German observation officers are 
watching this neighbourhood, and doubtless we were 
perceived by one of them while we were following 

234 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

the path which runs by the side of the thicket 
before penetrating under the cover of the trees, or 
when we stopped in a group to examine the topo- 
graphy of the place ; suddenly, there is a whistling 
sound above our heads, and, an instant after, a shell 
does brutal havoc among the trees a considerable 
distance to our rear. A second whistle ; a shell 
bursts near a wash-house with a zinc roof nestling 
in a dip of the meadow at the edge of the stream. 
Two more almost simultaneous whistles, and two 
projectiles fall, one to the right, the other to the 
left — not near enough to be alarming, but in- 
dicating all the same that we are being encircled. 
And we do not have to wait long for the fifth. 
It would be futile to wait here until the range was 
rectified. Besides, the enemy decides that he has 
expended enough — five shells on five men, none 
of whom have been hit. Behind the curtain of 
mud, the observation officer has not seen us make 
our escape, and, taking the lumps of earth and 
turf for the fragments of our dismembered bodies, 
he doubtless imagines that we have been utterly 
destroyed. 

The wood also is a bog, and the numerous 
ditches which have been dug to draw off the water 
have not availed to drain it. We make our way 

235 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

along foot-bridges. Some stout trunks of trees 
have been laid in two long parallel lines, and pieces 
of wood of various sizes have been nailed across 
them so as to form a sort of lattice. Since the 
trunks have not been squared and the cross-pieces 
have not been levelled, it is something of an 
acrobatic feat to maintain one's equilibrium on these 
rude bridges. 

For the construction of the lattices, the trees 
massacred by the cannonade have been turned 
to account. The principal constituent is the oak. 
Some very fine specimens had had their tops 
amputated by the shells below the first branches, 
so that they fell down straight against the trunk 
and replanted themselves in the ground. It is 
as sad as an unsuccessful acrobatic feat, especially 
as the branches of the other trees are putting out 
buds, while these beautiful stricken giants are 
dead. 

The shelters for the troops scattered in the 
wood are built with a view to avoiding an inunda- 
tion ; instead of digging caves, they have piled 
up earth to form a sort of terrace, on which a hut 
has been constructed, the walls being composed 
of trunks of trees and the roof of interlacing 
branches. The whole is covered with a thick 

236 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

coating of clayey earth. In this species of lake- 
dwelling, the soldier is almost dry, and he is also 
sheltered from fragments of shell. He might even 
fancy that he was inhabiting a fortified castle, 
since he needs a bridge to cross the ditches which 
are full of water. What a terrible quagmire this 
wood must have been a few months ago, in mid- 
winter, exposed to the incessant rains of this humid 
region ! At the present moment, beneath the 
warm rays of the sun, these stagnant waters, in 
which the men have thoughtlessly thrown all 
kinds of remains of food, not to speak of other 
kinds of filth, have become foetid sewers, infested 
with flies and mosquitoes. 

At the points where the bridge-paths bifurcate, 
signboards with facetious inscriptions indicate the 
directions. Here is one : " Road to the castle," 
and below, " Please do not walk on the grass." 
This latter warning appears to be entirely super- 
fluous ; all around, the soil is black and miry, 
and it is evidently long since any grass has grown 
there, but at the foot of the board I suddenly 
perceive a minute tuft of green grass ; this, it is 
explained to me, is the grass on which we are 
entreated not to walk ! As soon as it has pined away 
in this filthy water, the soldiers of the neighbouring 

237 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

cabin are very careful to plant another, which 
they procure from the meadow beyond the wood. 

Each cross-road has its sign-post. One of 
these, carved at one end into the shape of a hand 
with an outstretched finger, like those seen on 
the English roads, is inscribed : " View-point for 
tourists.' ' Another is in imitation of one of those 
conventional signboards announcing that a certain 
route is dangerous for motor traffic. 

There is scarcely a hut, moreover, which has 
not its own distinctive name, like the suburban 
villas of London or Paris. One is called " The 
Tabernacle/ ' another " The Law Courts." On the 
latter, the motto " Sic transit gloria mundi " (Thus 
passes away the glory of the world) indicates that 
the inhabitants accept this extempore dwelling with 
a stoical resignation, after having been accus- 
tomed to a more opulent, or at any rate a more 
comfortable, abode. On the former, with equal 
erudition and more lofty aspiration, the occupants 
have painted in stern characters : " Fiat justitia, 
ruat ccelum ! " (May justice triumph, though the 
skies fall !) 

Shortly before we arrived, the post had been 
distributed, and almost all the men we see are 
either absorbed in reading long letters or else hidden 

238 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

behind the pages of a newspaper. A great deal 
of reading-matter is sent to the soldiers : they get 
whole bundles of newspapers, and their families 
send them a profusion of periodical publications 
— illustrated papers, weeklies, magazines, and re- 
views — the number of which published in England 
is very considerable. 

In addition to devouring quantities of novels 
in cheap editions, the Englishman cannot dispense 
with this piecemeal reading, these popular articles, 
these chronicles and commentaries on events of 
the day which have formed his intellectual food 
from infancy. For in England, the people do not 
spend so much of their leisure out of doors as is 
the case with us. The climate is not propitious, 
and the people have formed other habits. No- 
where in England do we find those cafes with 
terraces where the City-man spends his evening 
after the office or dinner. In the English towns, 
after the labours of the day, the people return to 
their homes, which are seldom flats, for, even in 
London, each family occupies a separate house ; 
this secures more privacy and a more spacious 
home-life, and the people read to pass the time. 
In the more modest houses, the occupants of which 
in France would be contented with a daily paper, 

239 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

in England they are not satisfied without several 
periodicals. The father has his review, the mother 
has hers, and the children have their magazine. 
In the capital, in the great provincial centres, 
in the small towns, villages and farms, the people 
read much more than they do with us, and this 
explains the extraordinary variety of periodical 
publications, and ensures for them an enormous 
circulation. Therefore it is not surprising to 
perceive on the straw of the huts and on the rough 
tables with which they are furnished every variety 
of newspaper, review and magazine, the illustrated 
covers of which are sometimes of very startling hues. 

A signboard warns us that we are approaching 
a " level crossing,' ' and, in fact, a hedge composed 
of large bundles of sticks, firmly held in place by 
stout posts arranged at intervals, suddenly bars 
the way. Near an opening are the officers' quarters, 
preceded by a platform, on which are set out a 
genuine table and a few patched-up chairs. 

A placard invites us to visit the museum : 
" Permanent Exhibition, constantly increased by 
fresh contributions." Some very queer-looking ob- 
jects collected in the neighbourhood of the wood 
are set out on slopes of earth, for lack of shelves 
and show-cases. They naturally include every 

240 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

variety of fragments of shells and shrapnel, fuses, 
cartridges, sockets, several short bayonets, the 
butt-end of a gun, a damaged revolver, various 
empty jam-pots, a knife with broken blades. In a 
prominent position are displayed the busts of the 
Kaiser and the Crown Prince, modelled in cari- 
cature in clay, and in front of them, as if in bur- 
lesque homage, is an ancient watering-engine, dug 
out of Heaven knows what rubbish heap. Each 
article is furnished with a label adorned with 
amusing descriptions, some of which are rhymed. 
Most of them were, it seems, very witty, and I am 
content to believe it, since the damp and the rain 
have rendered the inscriptions illegible. 

After crossing the hedge, we are obliged to 
proceed in silence, for the German trenches are 
near by, and their irritable occupants fire at a 
venture across the wood. We have not far to go. 
The thicket is now less dense, but, to screen the 
pathway, a kind of curtain of branches has been 
constructed, behind which we advance to the 
outskirts of the wood. Here we have to walk in 
a stooping attitude behind a solid rampart of sacks 
of earth, and in this way we arrive at the first 
house of a hamlet— or, rather, at what was the 
first house of a hamlet which has disappeared. 

241 Q 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

All the buildings in this part of the country 
are brick, and a few shells are sufficient to de- 
molish them. The fragments of wall which are 
still standing have been formidably strengthened 
on the side facing the enemy by the most divers 
and ingenious methods. 

In what remains of the rooms, the soldiers 
have installed themselves in comparative comfort, 
turning to account anything capable of utilisation 
— mattresses, palliasses, chairs and benches, in- 
struments and tools, kitchen utensils, and a little 
crockery which has survived the devastation. 

It is only rarely that a piece of roof or ceiling 
has remained, capable of affording shelter from the 
rain ; but it is certainly less trying to walk on the 
floors of the barns, on the pavement or tiling of 
the kitchens and halls, or the parquet flooring or 
boards of the rooms, than to tramp through the 
sticky mud of the woods and meadows. 

Here and there we have to pass in front of 
gaps through which the projectiles of the enemy 
might penetrate obliquely. The important thing 
is not to allow oneself to be immortalised in one 
of these gaps. With a jest, we make two or three 
long strides preparatory to a spring, and then, 
with a leap, we reach the opposite rampart, in the 

242 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

shelter of which we feel a sense of security all the 
greater after the moment of danger. 

The sentinels, serious and attentive, posted at 
the loopholes of the parapet, keep watch over the 
bare space, with its iron- wire entanglements. With 
motionless faces and set lips, they scarcely turn 
their eyes as we slip behind them. 

Winter has passed over these ruins, and from 
their appearance they might date from a very 
remote epoch. Is it because there is scarcely any 
rubbish left ? There must have been a street 
between the houses, but how would it be possible 
to distinguish it in this chaos ? One would guess 
it to have been over there in front of those gardens 
which have been ploughed up with shells, and 
doubtless it passed before that cracked front of 
a house, across which hangs this sign : "A ma 
tranquillite : estaminet " ("At my ease : Coffee- 
house "). There is a sinister irony in the in- 
scription. 

However, before the war, this village, sheltered 
on the borders of the wood and the plain, was 
probably very peaceful, and the customer of the 
coffee-house might indeed consume at his ease his 
chop and his foaming amber-coloured beer, or his 
mug of coffee, flavoured with rum or gin — generally 

243 Q 2 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

both at once, with the addition of a little glass of 
cognac or of plain brandy. 

The ground rises in a gentle slope, and here 
wide trenches have been dug which are soon the 
height of a man. We are walking on the muddy 
bottom of a canal paved with bricks. At the 
places where the men are stationed, bridges have 
been constructed like those in the wood, out of 
great branches and logs, which give way at every 
step beneath our feet, so that we sink up to our 
ankles in the muddy water. 

Most of the trenches are sufficiently wide 
to allow of the construction of a sort of shelf, which 
the men use alternately as a seat and a table, and 
on which the sentinels perch themselves, so as to 
be on a level with the loop-holes in the parapet. 

There are cavities dug in the wall of the trench ; 
some, of modest dimensions, are used as receptacles 
for provisions or munitions ; others are veritable 
grottoes, strengthened by woodwork ; these serve 
as bedrooms, dining-rooms or reading-rooms. In 
these, individual ingenuity has free play ; the sol- 
dier displays an extraordinary skill in turning every- 
thing to account, and sometimes he produces amazing 
inventions or makes unexpected discoveries. 

In places, it is necessary to stoop and to be 
244 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

careful that no part of one's person projects 
above the edge of the trench, under pain of being 
perforated by a hostile bullet. But, for the most 
part, sacks of earth piled one on top of the other 
form a high parapet, behind which there is no 
necessity to bend one's back in order to be con- 
cealed. 

From time to time the shells pass over us with 
a smooth whistling sound, and involuntarily we 
raise our heads quickly in the vain hope of seeing 
them. The men and the officers, more inured to 
war, do not swerve from their path, but they 
recognise the bird as it passes by the sound of its 

flight : " Another from our X battery, aimed 

at V ! " or " Ah ! the German is answering 

back." 

Through the loopholes, or the holes in the shields 
for taking aim, it is only possible to get a very 
restricted view. We can distinguish the slope of 
the enemy trench at a distance of sometimes not 
more than thirty yards. In order to obtain a 
more extended view, it is necessary to have re- 
course to a periscope. There are various patterns. 
The one that is handed to me is rather large, and 
I am advised to raise it very slowly and cautiously 
in order that its sudden apparition may not 

245 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

attract the attention of the enemy lookout, for, 
in the latter case, it would certainly be fired at. 
I am very careful to obey these prudent recom- 
mendations. With my elbows on the sacks and 
my chest against the parapet, I gaze in the mirror 
at the space separating the two lines of trenches. 
A lieutenant kindly points out to me the most 
remarkable features, and gives me the benefit of 
his experience. We speak of the firing, and I ask 
him casually : 

*' Do the bullets sometimes pass the parapet ? " 
" Sometimes/ ' he replies calmly, and certainly 
not without a mischievous intention. 

" Thank you ! " I say to him, suddenly re- 
flecting that I am leaning against this vulnerable 
parapet. 

I turn my instrument towards the right, and 
there, against a network of iron wire, three corpses 
are lying. They are the bodies of some German 
soldiers who ventured out one night to repair their 
defences ; the beam of an inquisitive searchlight 
suddenly revealed their presence, and they did not 
regain their trench that night, nor yet the next. 

As we were talking, I must have clumsily jogged 
the top of the periscope, for the rifles opposite us 
begin to speak. " Pfuitt, pfuitt, dzeepp^dzeepp." 

246 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

Bullets whistle above our heads ; others bury 
themselves in the sacks of earth. I hasten to 
lower the periscope, which has not been hit, and 
the firing ceases. 

Progress through the trenches is not particu- 
larly easy ; you jump and ascend and descend, 
and tack and stumble and slip and recover your 
balance ; at every three steps you wedge yourself 
against the side, in order to pass in front of men 
with muddy uniforms who are patiently waiting 
on guard. The trench is occupied by soldiers who 
have already been under fire, and who belong to 
one of those distinguished regiments which have 
nicknames won on the battlefield, such as the 
following : — the Old Toughs, the Bloodsuckers, 
the Bloody Eleventh, the Cherry-Pickers, the Rib 
Breakers, the Slashers, the Steel Backs, the Die 
Hards, the Old Dirty-Shirts, the Sweeps, the 
Cheesemongers, the Death or Glory Boys. 

Sturdy and phlegmatic, they talk in whispers, 
smoke their light coloured tobacco with its insipid 
scent, read newspapers and magazines, write letters. 
Here they are preparing tea by the side of a tin 
box full of dry biscuits ; there, a slice of meat is 
sizzling in butter on a charcoal stove. 

A gallery brings us to the other extremity of 
247 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

the muddy wood. We once more proceed along 
bridges, which are so narrow that it is impossible 
to pass anyone on them. In order to allow the 
passage of a supply of water which is being con- 
veyed along our path, we are obliged to descend 
into the bog, taking care to plant our feet on roots 
and stumps so as not to sink in. We follow for a 
little while a raised road bordered with lagoons ; 
the ruts are so deep that carts must sink in them 
up to the axle. By the side, hidden under the 
branches, is a huge tank supported on two large 
trunks of trees. As there is no drinkable water 
in the wood, a spring near a farm has been appro- 
priated, and a motor, installed in the ruins, pumps 
the clear, pure water through iron pipes into the 
tank. 

Crossing the spongy surface of the meadow, 
we regain the road, and, after half-an-hour of quick 
walking, we resume our seats in the motor-car 
with a sense of satisfaction. We have escaped 
gunfire and rifle-fire and sinking in the bog, 
and it is an extraordinary relief to be able to stretch 
our legs, which are exhausted after their acrobatic 
feats on the perilous woodwork of the bridges. 



248 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

XXIV 

How War has Transformed the English 

HpHERE can be no question that the present 
war has entailed and will entail one of the 
most formidable revolutions that humanity has 
ever known. When a sufficient time has elapsed 
to enable us to judge present events in perspective, 
comparisons will be more easy ; then the dis- 
turbances of the French Revolution and the Napo- 
leonic Wars will seem like purely local agitations. 
At the present moment, the conflict let loose by 
German folly is shaking the whole world, from 
Japan to Canada, from Australia to South Africa, 
from Persia to Morocco, from Algeria to the 
Congo ; it may be said that all the continents 
and all the oceans are playing their part in it. 
Not a single nation but is experiencing the 
effects of it, even those who are displaying the 
greatest ingenuity in order to preserve a pitiful 
neutrality. 

In time as well as in space, the most pro- 
found reverberations are prolonging themselves, 
just as waves pursue and outstrip one another 

249 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

under the lash of the storm, and at last dash their 
foaming crests, in a raging surf, against the rocky 
cliffs. In their delirious arrogance the Prussian 
military clique did not realise that, by stirring up 
the waters of the great pure lake of civilisation, 
they would raise up avenging storms ; in their 
mad aberration, they forgot that no water is so 
stagnant but that the least pebble may produce 
in it an infinite series of ripples stretching to its 
banks. And at the present moment everything is 
at stake : the foundations and pillars of the social 
edifice are threatened by the German theories that 
treaties are scraps of paper, that necessity knows 
no law, and that might overrules right. 

From the dawn of time, when the first gleams 
of the human intelligence were kindled, the whole 
effort of all that is best and noblest in man has 
tended to oppose implacably these abominable 
claims of the barbarous and savage instinct in the 
primitive brute. From the most remote anti- 
quity up to the present day, in every country 
of the world and in every civilisation, the laws 
elaborated by the rulers of the people at the wish 
of the people themselves have aimed at subjugating 
might to right, at imposing respect for contracts, 
and at compelling necessity to conform to honour 

250 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

and justice. It is for this end that we have a 
penal code, and prisons and jails in which to 
confine malefactors and murderers who have in- 
fringed the laws designed to protect the honest 
members of the community. 

In the society of nations, militarist Germany 
has chosen for herself the role of assassin and 
pirate, and the Allies have taken on themselves 
the task of chastising the crime and preventing 
its recurrence. As for the attitude of the neutrals, 
we will leave them to judge themselves. 

When the United Kingdom declared war on 
the Germanic Empire after the latter had made 
its monstrous assault on Belgium, the French 
respected the Englishman for his noble regard for 
honour and justice, and not only the Englishman 
of England, but the citizen of Great Britain, the 
citizen of the British Empire, of Canada and 
Australia, of New Zealand and South Africa, 
whatever the name by which he is known. 

But a contrast was at once apparent between 
the English and the French conception of par- 
ticipation in the war. In France, where com- 
pulsory military service was regarded by the 
whole nation as a simple, intelligible, just and 
unavoidable duty, the men rose up and set off, 

251 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

in a grave and resolute spirit, to defend the 
sacred soil of la Patrie against the criminal invader. 
But this word " Patrie " does not exist in English : 
la Patrie, with a capital, and of feminine gender, 
which conjures up in our minds a symbolic figure 
of our mothers, our wives, our sisters and our 
daughters, all those for whom we feel, with all 
the strength of our being, the most ardent and 
respectful love, in all the noble forms that it may 
take — passion, tenderness, fidelity, adoration, sym- 
pathy, devotion and sacrifice. It is possible to 
make any demand of the Frenchman in the name 
of " la Patrie." Our great and tender Verlaine 
said, in words which are like a caress : 

" U amour de la Patrie est le premier amour 
Et le dernier amour . . ." 
To the Englishman it was necessary to appeal 
in other language. The unanimity in his case is 
based on the words " honour " and " justice." 
When the rights of Belgium were so shamefully 
trampled underfoot, the whole English nation 
regarded this monstrous assault against a weak 
nation which she had undertaken to defend as 
a personal outrage. The Englishman might per- 
haps have remained blind and deaf to his own 
interest when it was a question of participating 

252 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

in the war, but as soon as it became a question 
of honour for him, he no longer felt any hesita- 
tion, and he took the field as a champion of justice. 
And this will be one of his most famous titles of 
glory, one of the noblest pages in the history of 
the British Empire. 

For if, for the sake of convenience, we gener- 
ally speak of England, it ought not be forgotten 
that it was the whole British Empire which rose 
up against German treachery. The Dominions 
did not wait for a summons from the mother- 
country ; they spontaneously offered their generous 
co-operation in this gigantic struggle in order that 
the reputation of the Anglo-Saxon race might be 
guarded from any reproach. " Dieu et mon 
droit " is the proud motto of the English escut- 
cheon — " Honi soit qui mal y pense." Who will 
ever dare to speak again of " perfidious Abion " ? 
It is against " loyal England " that the wrath of 
crafty and perfidious Germany has been expended 
with such vehemence. 

For a long while the Englishman clung to this 
idea : that he was fighting for honour alone, and 
he agreed in advance to every sacrifice. It was 
only with the greatest difficulty that the violence 
of the Boche fury finally made him realise that 

253 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

the conflict was not as disinterested as he had 
thought and that his very existence was at stake. 
The bombardment of the English coasts, the raids 
of Zeppelins and aeroplanes, the threats against 
Egypt clearly showed that the ultimate aim of 
Germany was to attack the British Isles and to 
shake the foundations of the Empire. 

The Dominions had been more clear-sighted 
than the mother-country. From the outset they 
had understood that German envy was watching 
them, and it was for the upholding of the threatened 
Empire that they furnished their contingent. 
The reason of this is that the Englishman in the 
Dominions has ceased to be " insular " ; he knows 
that the silver girdle of the sea which surrounds 
the United Kingdom is only an illusory protection 
against the terrible weapons which modern science 
has placed in the hands of the assassins. Before 
reproving or ridiculing this belief in a security 
which no longer exists, we must remind ourselves 
that, since the Middle Ages, England has never 
had to defend her territory against invasion, and 
that her military traditions are based on con- 
tinental and colonial campaigns carried out by 
small numbers of troops and improvised armies. 

When the Englishman, by a slow process, did 
254 



A FRENCHMAN'S OBSERVATIONS 

finally realise the vital importance of the German 
menace, we see him take a firm resolution and adapt 
himself to the unforeseen conditions which he is 
forced to confront. In the history of no other 
country in the world do we find an example of so 
radical and rapid a transformation of custom and 
opinion. The Englishman gradually renounced his 
habits, his prejudices, his most cherished principles, 
his ways of thinking and of acting — in a few months 
he accomplished stages of mental development 
which have taken other nations scores of years. 

Certainly, when we consider the imperious 
necessities of the present war, we realise the 
tragic urgency of striking quickly and strongly, 
not only to keep back the enemy already so far 
from his frontiers, but to drive him from the 
countries which he has invaded, and to inflict on 
him such defeats as will alone deal the deathblow 
to his militarist frenzy. And from this point of 
view the military participation of England may 
have appeared slow to those impatient souls who 
only see the superficial aspect of things. But it 
would be a supreme injustice to be content with 
such an inconsidered judgment. The evolution 
of England since the present war is a unique ex- 
ample in history. 

255 



BRITAIN'S EFFORT 

While Britannia, the unconquerable, still holds 
firmly the trident which the German pirate dare not 
defy, John Bull, too, has thrown aside his riding- 
boots, his whip, his skirted coat and his low- 
crowned hat, to clothe himself in khaki and bury 
himself in the trenches. And this is not the least 
part of the transformations, if it is the most 
visible. Incredible fact ! England has accepted — 
what am I saying ? has demanded — what Alfred de 
Vigny called " Grandeur et Servitude Militaires " 
— the obligation upon all to take up arms for the 
defence of the Empire. 

" Wake up, John Bull ! " many people have 
been shouting for a long time. John Bull is awake 
now ; he has shaken off his apathy and sluggish- 
ness, and if we have reason to admire the re- 
velation of republican France confronting the 
enemy, we must also recognise, with the admiration 
it deserves, that the Englishman of the United 
Kingdom no less than the Englishman of the 
far Dominions, has proved himself equal to the 
hardest sacrifices in the sacred cause of humanity 
and civilisation. 

THE END. 



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